I’m Back

Two and half years after my last post, I am back!  Back training for the London Marathon again.  It was alway my intention to come back, but this is a little sooner than I expected!  I have applied through the ballot for the London Marathon about 6 or 7 times and never got in.  When I ran it in 2007, I thought I had applied 5 years in a row and lost out – you get an automatic guaranteed entry if you are rejected for 5 consecutive years.  Unfortunately I had missed a year and therefore did not get a guaranteed place.  But I had told everyone that I was doing it by the time I found out, so I found a charity place and got on with it.

In 2007 I realised that if I got rejected for another 5 years in a row, I would be guaranteed a place in the 2012 London Marathon – I could run the Olympic Marathon route (about as close as I will ever come to running in the Olympics).  So I applied in 2008 and 2009 and each time happily received my rejection pack from the London Marathon team.  This year, Virgin have taken over from Flora as the sponsors and Richard Branson clearly has different plans for me – last week I got my first ever Acceptance letter from Dave Bedford.  I should have been happy to finally win something in a raffle (I never have before) but this was not my plan……

However, I have been training since August for the St Neots Half Marathon to run with my mother-in-law and some of her colleagues to raise money for the NACC, a charity close to my families heart.  With a little bit of persuading (and alot of promises of nice things) my wife has agreed that running London in 2010 will be a good way to raise even more money for our chosen charity so she has (hesitantly) given me the green light. 

So I am back.  And I am a little bit wiser.  Running the marathon for the first time was very daunting – this time it will be alot more fun as I know what I am getting into and I know that I can at least get round to the finish.  Although I am still determined to be faster than last time!