Keith's London Marathon

My Story

My reason that I applied for the London Marathon (being completely transparent here) was on a whim because I was on a high after completing the Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge (also with Midwich for Cancer Research) in 11 hours 32 minutes (challenge target was 12 hours), and because the London Marathon was always one of those ‘bucket list’ type of events that is extremely hard to get on, so I was surprised (and a little scared) when I discovered that I had been successful. I’ve only ever run one full marathon before, which was the Brighton Marathon in 2017 and I said that I’d never do another one, lol. I have tended to stick to Half Marathons and Trail Runs over the years. I ran Brighton in 4 hours, 28 minutes back in 2017 and found it tough because most half races I tend to finish around sub 2 hours mark. I’m happy to run on behalf of Cancer Research UK as I have lost a few close friends to cancer over the years, and have had friends and family that have battled, or continue to battle, cancer to this day. It’s an awful disease which I hope that we find a cure to in the next few years and obviously raising money and awareness is only going to bring the world closer to that goal. To be honest the training has come with some challenges and setbacks so far this year. I have been running for many years now and have been fortunate that I hadn’t experienced any injuries – until this year!! In the middle of January, I suffered a knee injury and had to receive some physio and had to abstain from running for a whole month. During this time, I did maintain strength and conditioning work, however this setback has meant that I’m not where I should be with regards to my training plan. With less than 5 weeks to go, I find this quite worrying, but if I look at just finishing as my goal (even if I have to part walk some of it) then it should be ok. Obviously, I would’ve liked to have beaten my previous time but bearing in mind that I was younger (and probably lighter) then, plus I’ve had this injury to deal with, I’m facing reality here, but I’m going to try my best! It’s for a great cause and will still be a massive achievement.

My Video