Running out of time
We huddled around a huge table sipping lemon tea in a dimly-lit humble stone-built tea house in the sprawling Himalayan township of Namche Bazaar. Shadowed by the mighty Kongde Ri peak, it was a key staging post on the way to Everest. Visibly exhausted and somewhat dishevelled from our vertiginous trek to 3,440 metres, our conversation turned to Marathons. I’d already concluded that our trekking group was a pretty hardy bunch, but even so I was taken aback by the conversation that followed. ‘I’ve done eight marathons’ said Feras, ‘My tent companion pee-ed blood on the Marathon Des Sables — and the doctor said that was perfectly normal’ replied Richard. The stories continued, I was spellbound, silently listening in awe at the remarkable tales of great sacrifice and endurance.
Little did I know then that a seed of an idea had been planted that would spring into life when, sitting on the sofa, I watched the start line of the 2017 London Marathon featuring none other than one of our team, Feras Hamoudi, dressed as a bus. Next year, I thought, that could be me (minus the bus). Here is my fundraising page.
However there was a problem. I’ve never been a runner. Aged eleven, the frost biting lung-freezing sensation of school cross-country running put me right off. I’d just rather do something else. Until this year, other than a short stint as an Army Officer Cadet, I had never run more than 50 meters and so my first proper run at 26.219 miles was perhaps a little overly ambitious. When I visited the Runners Need shop for some shoes, the assistant asked about my ambition, I answered ‘I am not really a runner so I thought I’d start with the marathon’. There was an awkward moment of silence between us when we both realised what I’d just said — needless to say he sold me some shoes and I secretly vowed to use them.
The problem is running has never appealed to me. I even said as much to Chris Martin, the former PM’s Principal Private Secretary when we met a few weeks before he ran the marathon for Sarcoma UK. ‘I could never do that’ I said, which in turn had led me to trek the Sahara and Everest base camp instead to raise money for charity. I honestly didn’t think I could run.
Aged twenty three a particularly nasty rock climbing accident tore apart my left knee, requiring a number of reconstructive surgeries for the ACL ligaments and cartilage. Since then I had concluded that running was off the cards, but in truth it never was on the cards. I would quip ‘I don’t run for anything, not even a bus’. Which was true. The knee held up pretty well in Everest, though some days I had to walk backwards down the hills due to excruciating pain. I figured I would run secretly at first in case I couldn’t make it — I didn’t want to let people down by some pipe dream foolhardy fundraising that would come to nothing.
So I find myself in a surreal moment two weeks before the London Marathon with my runner’s vest and a truck-load of apprehension, wondering if I’ll make it. My fitness levels are good, last week I ran 15.9 miles — not just any miles ‘cornish miles’ i.e. stupidly hilly!
Its been a long journey to this point, running didn’t come naturally, as soon as I would get a few steps into my stride my mind would say ‘that’s enough now, time to walk’. It was a strange overpowering niggle. Invariably I would walk again and wonder how anyone could run more than a minute at a time. Now I am running out of time. I have trained hundreds of hours during long dark nights of winter and so far raised £155 for charity, but with your help my goal is to raise £3,000.
Please help if you have a spare a moment to donate, each of the last six miles will be dedicated to someone or something special. When I had cancer at 17 Teenage Cancer Trust didn’t exist, at that time I had no idea I would live a year let alone another thirty! Today the charity does amazing work and along with Sarcoma UK are raising visibility of rare cancers affecting young people.
In the next part of this story I hit the streets of London in My Marathon — probably the worst strategy for marathon running in history!
