I suppose the way to start this blog is to ask the question why this challenge? Why on earth would I want to run 10 marathons in 10 days?
To start to answer this question, I need to look a long way back in my life. I think it has been an evolution of several things over a long period of time.
I’ve been running approximately 20 years. I’ve trained, raced different distances, on road, cross country and fell. I’ve strived to improve my PB’s.
But I suppose really deep down inside me it has always been about one thing, the marathon.
The marathon has been in my head ever since I first heard about it during my teens. To me the marathon was the ultimate distance, the ultimate running challenge. No disrespect to any ultra runners reading this, I hadn’t heard of ultra running at the time but even today ultra running doesn’t hold the same appeal to me as the marathon. Is this just an excuse so I don’t have to do one? Anyhow my Dad completed 3 marathons, I wanted to follow in his foot steps and complete this ultimate challenge.
It took until I was 27 before the time came for me to run my first marathon. It was Manchester on 13th October 1996. It was run from Heaton Park in the north of the city and finished in Wythenshawe Park in the south. They were both lovely settings to start and finish the race. After I finished the race I felt dizzy and sick, put my head between my legs and vowed “Never again”.
A bit of time passed, the bad memories from the end of the race faded and thoughts of running another marathon came back. Over the coming years I kept completing 1 or 2 marathons each year, usually with reasonable training and often trying for a PB. I tried a few big city ones, unusual ones and later some more difficult ones.
The birth of our children Abbey in 2002 and Lucas in 2005 has put most of my overseas marathoning on hold and family commitments have reduced the frequency I’ve been able to run.
As I have got older the necessity to do a PB has lessened and just simply running different marathons has become the goal.
The children are now quickly becoming more independent and I’m finding the time to run a bit more and finding the time to fit in the extra marathon or two.
The final step in my evolution towards this challenge came in 2007 when I entered the newly resurrected Windermere marathon. I really fancied the idea of running round England’s largest lake as I had run round Coniston many times before and as both me and Yuk-Lam love the Lake District. Amongst us marathon runners I became aware there were a hand full of extraordinary runners. They were actually running the marathon course for the 10th time in as many days! I couldn’t believe it was even humanly possible. I had immense respect for their achievement and thought they must be almost super human. I went away from Windermere that weekend with the seed planted in my mind.
“Be Inspired” say the Brathay Trust and I think that day I was.
