Great North Run!

And now a message from intrepid uber-coder, Paul Holden:

Since I joined Media Molecule at the start of 2007 I’ve regularly spent my lunchtimes running around the streets of Guildford. I find running helps to clear my thoughts so if I’ve been stuck with a particularly nasty problem I often find I’ve figured out a solution half-way through my run. It also means I can eat lots of delicious cake without feeling guilty!

We like charts and things here at Media Molecule, so I’ve made a graph of the cumulative distance I’ve run since starting here. I guess I must have had lots of tricky problems to solve over the past two years, because I’ve run over 1,000 miles now – that’s far enough to run from Guildford to Algeria!

On Sunday I’ll be taking part in the the Great North Run back in my hometown of Newcastle. The Great North Run is the world’s largest half-marathon. Every year around 50,000 people run the 13.1 miles from Newcastle to South Shields. Every year runners participating in the race raise millions of pounds in sponsorship for different charities.

I’m raising money for a charity called the Foundation for Study of Infant Deaths. FSID work to help prevent sudden deaths in infants, fund research, and provide support for bereaved families. I had an older brother who died suddenly as an infant and I wanted to do something to help the charity that helped my parents 30 years ago.

I’ve set up a fundraising page at http://www.justgiving.com/paulholden and I’d be incredibly grateful if anyone wanted to sponsor me. Even if you can only spare a few pounds that would be amazing. If you’re a UK taxpayer you can claim the tax back on your donation with Gift Aid. This means that for every pound you donate, £1.28 goes to FSID.

[NB this isn’t an official fundraiser by Mm, Sony or LBP; however it’s a very worthy cause and wow, you should see the amount of sweat that comes off Paul when he runs all those miles… If you think he should run in a giant sackboy costume, post your votes in the comments :) ]