#MyMarathon – The First 7 Miles
What is #MyMarathon?
If you read my round up post about lovely things I got up to in April, you might have seen that I’d made a plan for something to achieve in May too. When the British Heart Foundation asked if I’d like to take part in their May challenge, #MyMarathon, I thought they must be joking. Yet I still signed up…
Why?
Well, it’s not a standard marathon like you’re expecting, this one is entirely at your own pace across the month of May. So whether you finish it in 4 hours, 4 days or all 4 weeks, it’s your choice.
The idea is to improve your fitness, get out and about and raise money for the lifesaving research that the BHF do.
However, I’m not a fan of people asking for sponsorship for anything that isn’t short of near impossible.
If I was actually running, let’s say, the London marathon, I would then be training for months before hand, pushing my body to the limit and committing a huge amount of time.
#MyMarathon is different as I’m not quite going that far. If you’re feeling particularly flush, this is my fundraising page, but I’m not asking you to sponsor me, I’m just keeping you up to date with the miles so far. At the end of this all I’m going to donate £26.20, and my Dad also said if I manage it, he’ll give the same amount to congratulate me. So there you go!
Instead, I’m committing to running every weekend until I go to Barcelona, completing all 26.2 miles before I leave at the end of May and slowly increasing my miles day by day, weekend by weekend.
It didn’t quite work out like that so far.
In fact, I surprised myself…
…I did more than I planned.
When 1st May rolled around, I jumped out of bed (more likely resembling a sleepy slug) and before doing anything else, was knitted out in lycra ready to take on the pavement and do my first run in ages. Luckily this one only needed to be 1.5 miles. Nothing!
That is, until Adam decided to come with me, and then we thought as we needed to go to B&Q anyway, why not run there. 2.5 miles there…2.5 miles back…no biggie?!
5 miles was what I was supposed to be leading up to on the last weekend. Start with 1.5, then 2, then move onto 2.5 + 3 + 3.5 + 4 + 4.5 + 5 = 26. Tag on an extra .2 somewhere and I’d be done!
However, off we raced on our 5 miler to buy some spray paint so that we could upcycle a wooden chest we’ve bought, only to realise maybe we’d set our sights a little high.
Don’t get me wrong, we did it. We had to – how else do you get home?! But it rained on the way back which meant a strange combination of feeling really hot faced, but cold limbed. Legs aching we kept pointing out markers to each other. The next road sign, the end of the hedge, the top of the hill. It helps.
I actually really surprised myself and enjoyed it. Plus the lure of avo and eggs on the worlds most delicious garlic and herb sourdough toast really spurred me on, y’know?!
Adam decided not so much, his one run of the year was complete and in his words “that’s it, I prefer being fat”, which is ironic as out of the two of us, I’m the chubby one.
Bank holiday Monday rolled around, and once again, I was keen to go out again. This time to post a letter we’d been holding onto for ages. Running + errands make a lot of sense.
Wanting to not go all out in my first weekend, I only did 2 miles, but it was pretty hilly and I still felt pretty great.
Week 1 complete and so far my thoughts on #MyMarathon are:
- Running isn’t actually that bad
- Purposeful running is much better than just for the sake of it
- 7 miles feels quite the achievement! #Proud
- Spend twice as long stretching as you initially think, it really does help
- Wahoo only 19.2 miles left!
If you fancy joining in to, it’s currently only the 5th so you’ve got plenty of time. Have a look at their website here.
