iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

What a bloody show. Hope you enjoy! Don’t miss the Atom Eve special that you’ll have to wiki to work out when to canonically watch it! TV is fun

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Thank you once again for pushing me out of my comfort zone for such a deserving cause, and supporting me every step of the way. Now though, I must sleep (there will be no stream today and I will post a full week schedule tomorrow). - Ben

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The running is over (for now), the charity work complete (for now), and the diet’s on the back burner (also for now, I suppose, ugh), but the donation page is still live if you want to donate: benpottervo.com/run

I will struggle to forgive you for being so generous that we passed the “man on horse” costume milestone however. It was sweaty and uncomfortable, and other runners kept thinking I was kicking them.

Together we’ve raised an awful lot of money for the pandas, not only beating WWF’s previous record for fundraising at the Great North Run, but utterly OBLITERATING it. I am so incredibly proud of you, and what you’ve been able to achieve.

Whether you donated, got your name on a shirt, bid on the auctions, or offered me words of encouragement and advice, you lot truly are the best community I could’ve possibly hoped for, and you mean the world to me.

Of course the real stars however, are all of you. You’ve blown me away with your unbelievable generosity and support ONCE AGAIN.

Always keen to get involved no matter the brief or goal, we’ve been putting on charity streams for 5 years now, and as one of my oldest friends, it wouldn't have felt the same without him. Look at him with that stupid panda makeup on. What an idiot.

This newfound knowledge was properly applied with the humungous, 14-hour Resident Evil 5 stream I did with my friend Ben! And so to Ben G: thank you.

Thanks should also be extended to the wonderful Tom from @tiltify.com! Tom took the time to hop on a call and talk me through Tiltify’s fundraising features, offer ideas, and answer any queries I had, all of which was a MASSIVE help.

He contributed giveaway prizes, answered my stupid questions, and swiftly sent me a replacement running top when I spilled spicy ramen on it. A consummate professional, and an absolute pleasure to deal with.

I want to give a huge shoutout to Luke at @wwf.org.uk! Luke contacted me as soon as I signed up to run for WWF, and has been a constant pillar of support and guidance throughout this process.

Perhaps most importantly however, she kept me motivated and talked me down when I kept wanting to order pizza and drown myself in grease, which was often, and this all would’ve been significantly tougher without her invaluable support. She is my Dwayne, my rock, my Johnson ❤️

And so I started the JOYOUS task of training, and this has been assisted massively by the tireless efforts of my incredible fiancée. She researched nutrition, constructed numerous spreadsheets to track calories, protein intake etc, and cooked and prepared the vast majority of my meals to boot.

When @thetomcampbell.bsky.social first suggested I run the Great North Run a few months ago, I, a few drinks deep, hubristically believed I could have run it the very next day. This was not the case. Run some of it? Sure. Walk most of it? Probably. Die? Maybe.

While I’ve raised money for charities in the past, I’ve never done so in such physically strenuous fashion. In fact, the last “organised” run I took part in was the Sport Relief mile back when I was a teenager. A half marathon, it turns out, is a bit harder, and I have a lot of people to thank!

We’ve been building up to it for months now; a big run to raise money for the pandas. I wasn’t sure what to expect when we started, but you’ve all blown me away with your support and generosity, and the grand total raised for @wwf.org.uk now sits at an incredible £5,450!

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