The extra miles

Followers of my social media channels will know that on Thursday I had the privilege of joining Patrick Allen from Henry Schein and small group of intrepid dental folks for marathon #388/401 with Ben Smith, who is completing 401 marathons in 401 consecutive days to raise £250,000 for charities that support those who have suffered as a result of bullying.

You can read all about Ben and his wonderful achievements HERE.

Ironically, I’m taking a day off training today as I’m possibly the most burned out I’ve been this year – simply an accumulation of early starts, late nights and a busy calendar (read yesterday’s blog). My usual long training run on a Saturday morning is beyond my capacity to imagine – and I’m sufficiently experienced in these matters to know when to stop.

But I have, this morning, entered for Ben’s final challenge to all of us – and that is to join him during the week between 2nd and 9th October (his final day) in running our own personal marathon, in however many stages, at whatever pace during that week.

The entry ticket is £26.20 (get it?), 100% of which will go to the two causes he is supporting – and the finishers will get an official marathon medal to treasure or add to their collection.

So unexpectedly, my 24th marathon will not be in Dublin on 30th October – it will be here in leafy Cheshire on 9th October.

That will be the first day back at home after the BDIA (normally another burn out recovery day) but I’m going to commit here and now to making the distance.

I’m not going to ask you to send me money – I think we are all sometimes overwhelmed with charitable donation requests – but I am going to ask you to follow and encourage me on the day and maybe, just maybe, consider supporting Ben by doing the same challenge yourself – remember 26.2 miles in as many stages as you like during that week.

You can enter by following the link above to his web site.

My plan will be 4 x 10k runs spread through the day at about 1hr 15mins each, with an extra 2k on the final circuit to make up the distance – so I’ll be completing hopefully within a 12 hour timescale – planning my slowest ever marathon time – because this one is simply about taking part.

Incidentally I’m entry #695 on the web site this morning so we have collectively raised over £18,000 already

Interested?

If you want to join me in Hale for the day I’d be delighted to have someone to chat to and I’m sure that Annie won’t mind providing us with periodic refreshments.

Even if you can’t physically join me – why not consider virtually joining Ben?