I have a goal of running a 10K next summer. This is probably no big deal to some people, but I hate running in a way words can’t accurately describe. I’d rather have a screaming fight with a loved one, clean the bathrooms at Yankee Stadium, or eat clams and other wobbly foods before I would run a full mile. I’m really not exaggerating here, I think it is epically awful. Thus, I need to force myself to work through it and defeat it. And then by summer 2011 I will run a marathon. I’m also trying to be realistic here.

Anyway, I thought this was all very ambitious, especially considering I’ve actually been working really hard on it. Normally I’m all talk you see. So imagine the jaw-dropping that occurred when I read that British comedian/actor Eddie Izzard has just completed an epic 1,100 mile run across Great Britain in seven weeks for a charity called Sport Relief. That’s the equivalent of 43 marathons. He ran 30 miles a day, six days a week through all the capitals.

Standup comedian Eddie Izzard completed a 1,100 mile (1,770 kilometer) run across Britain on Tuesday, staggering across the finish line at London’s rain-soaked Trafalgar Square. The cross-dressing comic, better known for running through his routines in drag than running marathons, said he managed the feat of endurance with only five weeks’ training.

“I … feel … exhausted,” Izzard said, raising his hands in the air in front of assembled journalists. Izzard covered the country in seven weeks, clocking up at least 27 miles (43 kilometers) nearly every day to raise money for Sport Relief, a U.K. charity which works in Britain and abroad. The 47-year-old entertainer, known to U.S. audiences for his roles in FX’s “The Riches” and Tom Cruise’s World War II drama “Valkyrie,” said the run had wrecked his feet.

“The small toes have lost their nails and they look like alien monsters but I’m told they will grow back,” he said, adding that while everyone kept complementing him about the shape of his legs, “I thought they looked quite good beforehand.” Sport Relief spokeswoman Jeni Ayling said a BBC crew was accompanying him in a rickshaw the whole way, filming him as he ran. Also following him were his manager, a sports therapist, and an ice cream van which periodically played the theme song to “Chariots Of Fire.”

The double Emmy award-winner’s run took him across Britain, from London to Liverpool, Northern Ireland, Scotland and down back to the capital, according to the BBC. The broadcaster said Izzard effectively ran 43 marathons. It added that some of Izzard’s runs had taken him as many as 10 hours to complete, although his last one was took just over five. Izzard said told the broadcaster last month that “you have to be a little bit crazy” to tackle a challenge of this kind.

[From Yahoo]

This is my absolute favorite story of the year so far. I can’t imagine any celebrity doing anything half this amazing in the next three and a half months. Every single thing gives me chills. What an incredible way to take something that’s a huge challenge – a marathon – and then do it so much bigger. 43 times bigger. I can’t imagine how anyone could do something so demanding. I just feel totally boggled, and like I need to create some sort of statue or shrine to Eddie Izzard now. And while he raised an enormous amount of money, I’m guessing Eddie has access to £200,000. It’s probably hard to put a price on something like this, but to me running 1,100 miles in less than two months is worth so much more than if he’d written a check for £200,000.

Eddie’s got great stories too – like the time he stopped to get a hamburger and a group of girls spontaneously decided to join him on his run. Or that the ice cream truck’s purpose wasn’t just to play inspirational music for Eddie (waaaay better than using an iPod, by the way) – it also gave out free ice cream to his supporters who came to watch along the way. And he ate 5,000 – 6,000 calories a day. That’s the only incentive I could think of that might actually tempt me to do 1/43rd of what Eddie’s done. I am such a cheeseball, but Eddie Izzard actually made me tear up. I hope they make an inspirational sports movie about this someday.

Here’s a clip from the BBC’s documentary about Eddie’s run, along with pictures of him on September 7th and July 29th. There’s a good deal of running in the rain in Great Britain. Images thanks to WENN.com .

Sometimes a television show comes along that despite ultimately superior acting and writing, just doesn’t find an audience big enough to keep it on the air. The Riches, on FX, was one of those shows. The Riches starred Eddie Izzard and recent new mother Minnie Driver as the parents of a family of grifters who con themselves into the life of a wealthy family in Louisiana. Although it was loved by the people who watched, there weren’t quite enough of those people to keep the show on TV and it was unceremoniously cancelled in September after two seasons.

Now Izzard, who co-wrote the pilot of the show, wants to put The Riches in movie theatres. Eddie says that he has approached the powers that be at the network to ask if he can write a screenplay based on the unclosed ending of the show.

“I was an elevator in London at an awards ceremony and Samuel L. Jackson looks at me and says, ‘So, what’s happening to your kid,’” said Eddie, referring to his on-screen son Cael, who was last seen getting duped by another group of Travellers.

“I told Samuel, ‘We don’t know at the moment.’ but I’ve posed to the heads of FX and TBS that we want to make a film. And they said, “Right, we’ll support you.”

[From OK! TV Fanatic]

While the network heads may have said they’d support him, they evidently didn’t mean financially. Eddie is turning to the Internet to raise funds for the movie. I want this movie to happen, but I can’t get my hopes up too high on a movie that is counting on Internet fundraising to come up with that kind of money. Barack Obama did it, though, so maybe, “Yes, Eddie Can!”

I couldn’t help but think, when Samuel L. Jackson asked Izzard what was up with his son, he may not have actually been talking about his character’s son. There’s a widespread belief, or hope may be more likely, that Minnie Driver’s new baby, Henry Story, is Eddie Izzard’s child. Judging by Izzards comments, though, he doesn’t care quite enough about the kid to be his father.

“I haven’t met the baby, but I called her up and she said, ‘He’s looking at the phone.’ The baby was looking at her and smiling like he knew something. He must have known I was going to call her up and say, ‘We’re going to do a movie of The Riches.’”

[From Ok! TV Fanatic]

Maybe Henry knows where Izzard can come up with the money to finance the movie, too. Minnie could have sold first baby pictures to chip in, but she decided to release a photo on her myspace instead.

According to the NY Post, the mystery father of Minnie Driver’s baby is “a TV writer” who broke up with her when he found out she was pregnant.

Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver are shown promoting The Riches on 4/28/08. Credit: Juan Rico/Fame Pictures