By: Pete Jones
Run to the Beat, the name of the half-marathon we’ve been harassing you for sponsorship about, helpfully sent out lots of 
pre-race material written in annoying overly-familiar marketing speak to help us to prepare and get us in the mood. “As soon as you cross the line you’ll be wanting to sign up for 2011 to beat your 2010 time” they parped.
This, it turns out, was a lie.
I believe I can safely assume the right to speak on behalf of all three competitors when I say that I never, ever want to go through that again, and I’m really quite happy that it’s over and not coming back. Around mile 10 my legs turned to lead. The only thing to successfully take Jo’s mind off the pain was her annoyance at a preacher preaching (that’s what they do) to the runners. And Joe thought the ligaments in his knee were going to “pop”.
So thank you to everyone who has sponsored us or wished us well or supported us in whatever way you can. Because without that, this would have been nothing more than an extravagant exercise in extreme self harm, a sadomasochistic display on a par with Jo’s attempts to stay vegan, Joe ‘giving up’ smoking, or me going to a Torquay United match.
For the record, we all finished with more than respectable times. I scraped in just under 2 hours and the two Jo(e)s were just behind that. Given our lamentable training regimes, we’re all pretty pleased with that. The bananas and pantomime horses didn’t beat us, and that constitutes a success.
ISM will benefit hugely from the money raised, it’ll make a real difference on the ground in Palestine. And, if you didn’t believe we’d make it (fair enough) and were holding off on sponsoring us, now’s the time to go make a donation. Just go here to find out how:< http://www.ism-london.org.uk/sponsor-page
Thanks again to everyone!
Pete, Joe and Jo