“I don’t run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days” goes the (semi) famous quote by Ronald Rook. For those of you who don’t know, quotes by Ronald Rook appear in (as near as makes no difference) every single outlet related to running that you could possibly imagine. I’m guessing he’s pretty famous in the running community, however I only know two things about him. The first, is that he is an absolute bastard to try and Google, and the second is that I hope he gets the treatment he desperately needs as that man is fucking mental.

Regular voyeurs to our Instagram may well be aware that I like a good, quick walk. Crank up the podcasts (usually Dr. Buckles, though recently I’m binging You’re Dead To Me) and head off around Victoria Docks and, for an hour or two, you can forget about whatever shit is going on in your life and simply exist. There’s only one thing that ruins a good, quick walk, and that’s walking so quickly that it’s a run. When I was in uni, I picked up an NHS podcast called Couch to 5k, designed to get people who have never run in their life up to completing a 5k over the course of around 10 weeks. I completed that podcast and, I have to admit, I was smashing out pretty quick 5ks at the Saturday races (PB is 22:23, for anyone who cares).

I then moved on to another podcast produced by the same lovely folk called Couch to 10k, designed to get you running (you guessed it) 10k in as many weeks. You’ll probably be disappointed to hear that I didn’t complete that one. Something happened in my brain where I just got incredibly bored around the 8k mark, and so I stuck to 5ks. That is, however, until recently. Spurred on by the lads in TGL, I can say that this week, I completed 10k. As did the rest of the band, as it so happens, because on Wednesday night, thanks to you lovely lot, Out of My Hands crossed the 10,000 streams mark on Spotify.

Whilst you take a moment to recover from that M. Night Shyamalan twist, I’m going to spend some time thanking you for each and every stream. We are so truly grateful for all of the love you’ve shown us. We’re also excited to say that we’ve booked the studio for the end of the month and around spring, we will be releasing the first of many singles this year. Can we beat 10k with them? With fans as good as you, I reckon we’ll smash it.

I’m gonna go and have a beer to celebrate, but we will have a special bonus blog out on Monday, so keep your eyes glued to the socials for that. Until then, go watch the video for OOMH on YouTube. It’s dead good, honest.

Gratefully yours,

Jason AKA The Great Race[r]xxx