After a grueling 3hrs 32min for Richard and 4hrs 4mins for Lee, Mission Marathon was completed on a glorious sunny day in Central London.
Sponsorship from friends, family and work colleagues generated a generous pot of money for Macmillan Cancer Support and Breakthrough Breast Cancer totaling nearly £5500 with still more pledges being received.
Lee described the day as an emotional and physical rollercoaster that he could not have completed without his 5 months of training and quoted Perseverance is doing the hard work you do after you get tired of the doing the hard work you have already done, all 26.2 miles of it. Stats showed a finish in the top 35% of the entire field of runners as well as an overall position of 44% amongst the Male runners and 34% for his age group 40-44yrs old.
This was Richard’s third and final Marathon, and he was all too aware of the intense training he and his brother were to endure for such an event. Richard initially hoped to complete the marathon with a sub three hour time, but soon realized this couldn’t be achieved, despite training extra hard with a 10KG vest. Beating his personal best of 3.21 was the next target and he looked like smashing it by around ten minutes. Eventually, an injury during training got the better of Richard, and he was unable to run two weeks before the big day. A decent first half of 1.35 saw Richard on target, but as the pain killers wore off, he limped home to finish in a respectable 3.32.
A big thankyou to all the sponsors who helped Lee & Richard raise a respectable sum and in particular the generous donations received from C.Brewers & Sons, Akzo Nobel, Premier Recruitment and Shorthouse & Martin Accountants.
