Monday 1 April 2013

The Magnificent Six




I have been volunteering with Street Child and decided to run the Sierra Leone Marathon in May to raise money for them. I know my friends and they know me, so to raise the money the charity deserves I realised that they wouldn't just sponsor me for running a marathon, even if it is in 31C and 90% humidity; I've run plenty of marathons before, so I was going to have to do something special to get their attention. 

I had my London marathon place guaranteed and having never started from the Championship start, I wanted to experience the atmosphere. I was invited to be at pacer at the Brighton Marathon and then recieved an email about the Dirty Weekend and my challenges were set:

The Challenges

1) Pacemake the Brighton marathon in under 3.15 (with no tapering) – top 7% of marathon runners.
2) Run the London marathon a week later and be winning the entire race at the 400 meter point – will take some positioning and going flat out to catch Mo Farah, he’ll be averaging 71 seconds per 400 and I’ll be starting downfield.
3) Finish the London marathon in a good for age time of sub 3.10 (with no tapering) – top 5% of marathon runners. Brighton and the 400m sprint start could easily scupper this.
4) Top ten in the world’s largest assault course 3 weeks later (20 miles and 200 obstacles) - harder than a marathon.
5) Podium at the Sierra Leone marathon - two weeks later.
6) Finish the Sierra Leone marathon 2.50-3hrs – average temperature 31C (88F ) - top 1-3% marathon runners.

I'm not sure if I'll achieve all of those, but they're all potentially possible and hopefully worth sponsorship uk.virginmoneygiving.com//davidhellard/


I'll update my blog as I attempt every challenge, any advice is more than welcome.

If you enjoyed this post, please share on social media and subscribe to this blog in the top right of the page!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment