London marathon and my idea of hell!

In April 2023 I will be running the London Marathon in aid of WWF, an organisation so important in helping animals, the planet and the people. I understand this is a huge amount of money to raise in these current times and suspect I’ll be rounding it up personally, but I’d be so grateful for any help anyone could offer. Running a marathon has always been on my bucket list, however, due to the ill-treatment I’ve done to my body, I’m pretty sure this will be the only marathon I’ll attempt. This ill-treatment of my body is due to years of over-exercising, so training to run a marathon, though terrifying does tick the little box in my head and I’m aware some people who know me or just see me in the gym may think this isn’t too much of a challenge. So despite the fact the marathon is going to be incredibly challenging, especially as I can’t train by doing lots of running due to my arthritic knees. I’m making this a challenge extra personal and extra difficult.

I’ll be starting my training with 1 week of no exercise on September 1st, I understand for most people this is simple; the hard part is working out every day. However, for the past 7 years, there’s probably been less than 40 days I haven’t done a vigorous workout. Even when I re-broke my collarbone in 2020 I thought I might try to take some days off, yet 10 hours later I was on a spin bike. Christmas day I work out, injured I work out, sleep deprived, sick or burnt out, I do it, even at festivals I’ll do a workout despite the copious amounts of steps and dancing. Most days I complete 30,000+ steps, with my fitness watch averaging out at around 3,600cals. I’m not bragging as it's damaging me greatly, mentally and physically, and I don’t even have a body that displays how much I do, due to years of abuse. I wanted to include this as switching up my workouts will probably be a mental struggle anyway but including this will probably be more of a mental struggle than physically running the marathon, so asking people to donate I want to show how much of a challenge I’m taking on. Due to this being more mental health related I will personally donate 10% of however much I receive in donations to the charity Mind.

A little bit on WWF and why I chose them, and why I think any pennies you can offer will be for a good cause. Earth is in a dire state with action that needs to happen now, many people including myself fear having children due to the fast digression of the planet, WWF is the world's leading organisation that wants to prevent such destruction. Whilst doing this they are protecting endangered species and saving the homes and lives of so many animals. Humans and animals living in harmony is one of my main passions and beliefs which makes WWF such an amazing charity for me to put sweat, blood and tears into (all 3 I’m certain will be shed in the next ).

If you can donate £1, or £10 I’d be so grateful. I’m possibly thinking of doing a 5min challenge for a £5 donation in the gym but if anyone wants to give me an extra challenge in return for a donation, I'm all in!!