By James Slade
A year ago I set myself a bucket list of things to do before I’m 40 (I’m 39), and one of the things on my list was to run a full marathon. In the past I’ve run a few half marathons, but straight after each one I’ve always thought to myself, “there’s no way I can do another one of those”. However, 2021 was to be the year I finally gave it a go, so signed myself up to the Virtual London Marathon! My marathon training started 18 weeks prior, and actually the hardest thing about it is find-ing the time to fit in the 3 mid week runs and the long run each week. However I was very disciplined and stuck to it as much as I could, even completing my longest run; 20 miles when I ran around Virginia Water lake 5 times!!
The good thing about the Virtual London Marathon is you can mark out your very own “flattest” possible route. My goal was to fin-ish the 26.2 miles in under 4 hours, and it all started well, maybe too well… I set off from my front door in Shepperton, where my wife (Gemma) and Daughters (Freya & Holly) joined me for the first 2 miles, then the route took me along the river Thames/Wey Naviga-tion to Byfleet, back up through Addlestone and over Chertsey bridge, then back towards Shepperton for refreshments. At this point it was all going to plan, I’d run the first half of the route in well under 2 hours, so was on track to that sub 4 hours!!
After an initial fast paced start, it was a long slog through Sunbury (past Surplus to Supper on Lower Hampton Road) all the way to Bushy Park in Kingston where I turned back towards home. But this was the point in the run when the leg cramps started to set in. Thankfully, once I reached Hampton Court I was met by some friends who were running the last 5 miles with me. That really helped me get through those painful last miles. We followed the towpath towards home, finally ending the race at the Red Lion where I had the most amazing welcome from family and friends to cheer me over the line!
I managed to finish the marathon in a respect-able 4 hours 14 minutes, not quite the sub 4 hours but there’s always next time !!! The charity I chose to raise money for is an amazing local charity, Surplus to Supper (featured also on p16 in this magazine). I real-ly wanted to support a local charity where the money raised could really make a difference. Having known Anne Marie, and the great work she and the team at Surplus to Supper do day to day to help bridge the gap between food waste and food poverty, I knew this was the perfect charity to run the marathon for!
I originally hoped to raise £300 but actually doubled that amount and managed to raise an impressive £619.75 (including gift aid) £536 (not including gift aid).