2020

Well. That’s it. All done. Slower than my time (by about 11 minutes) back in March, but that’s my first, ‘official’ marathon completed.

Granted, not what was planned when I first applied back in 2019, COVID-19 has seen to that, but nonetheless, a thoroughly enjoyable (and hopefully unique) experience. For those that weren’t already aware, the event from April 2020 had to be postponed to October 2021. Then only a few weeks before that when it became clear that event too was unable to be staged (for all but elite runners), the organisers came up with new concept, run the event wherever you are in the world, within a 24 hour window.

After initially being sceptical of the concept, it didn’t take me long to realise that this was an opportunity to do something very different, so I was very happy when my application to take part was accepted. As far as the training programme was going, everything was on track. I was on a 12 week plan and completing all the necessary miles. I’m more than used to running as much as 13.1 miles regularly, so the additional miles I’d hoped wouldn’t be too big a deal.

On the day itself, I was very lucky with the weather, after some initial rain, the conditions were more or less perfect. In comparison with some of the entrants down south experiencing torrential rain, this was a huge bonus.

I’ll keep this brief, suffice it to say I had a great experience, I received a lot of encouragement off total strangers along the route which for me, was quite unexpected. I’m now thoroughly looking forward to running the event on October 3rd 2021 down in London!

Many thanks for all that donated, your help is very much appreciated. If anyone still fancies chipping in, the link is below:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MarkHaworth3

Thanks for all the support since I decided to undertake this adventure. For all those that say “I’d never be able to run a marathon” you hugely underestimate your ability. With a little dedication and the willingness to put the necessary training in, it’s actually not that hard. If I can do it, so can you 🙂