From C25K to the 2018 London Marathon

[John_W]

Hi everyone,

3 years after completing my own Couch-to-5k I am incredibly excited, honoured, privileged and lucky to be taking part in this year’s London Marathon on Sunday 22 April - a long-held dream of mine having first applied for it in 1991. It will be my first marathon too.

I got a Flora/Unilever place in 2008 but that was naïve of me – my dodgy knees wouldn’t have lasted 1 week of training, so sadly I gave the place back. But my knees are much better now!

My London Marathon place is courtesy of the London Playing Fields Foundation (lpff.org.uk/) who were asking me to raise a minimum of £1000 - very modest as these things go. I've increased the target to £2012 (it's a London2012 thing) and in just over 1 week, I've raised £1500 (excl Gift Aid).

They do amazing work in London to maintain 7 playing fields, protect them from the likes of developers and encourage disadvantaged groups to use them. You can read more here: lpff.org.uk/About/What-We-Do

I know I'm not a regular poster here but I thought I'd share this with you anyway.

My fund-raising page is here:

uk.virginmoneygiving.com/VO... - have a read! You might enjoy it.

And it's always nice to have celebrity endorsement Dara O'Briain (yes!) tweeted about it yesterday :

twitter.com/daraobriain/sta...

and if you want to know how/why that happened, then have a read of this (it explains the London2012 thing as well )

volshy.wordpress.com/

Thank you - have a great weekend and happy running!

John aka Volshy

poppypug ju-ju-

[Realfoodieclub Graduate]

Amazing to get a place with such a low fundraising target. Well done for already smashing it. Good luck with your training looking forward to looking for you in the mass of crowds that wee see on the telly. Not too long to go now really. Happy running.

[John_W Graduate in reply to Realfoodieclub]

Thanks - yes I've been pretty lucky really. It's worked out so well. 72 days to go! AAARRGHHHH!

[Bluebirdrunner Graduate]

Hi John, thats so exciting...and your first marathon too! Good luck with the training and I hope you have a fantastic day!

I do follow you on Strava and remember your posts when I first started C25k....😊x

[Bluebirdrunner Graduate]

All the very best for tomorrow John, I hope your Achillies behaves and you get round safely and hopefully enjoy your day! Good luck...and finishing is winning 😊xxx

[Hidden]

Congratulations to have come this far! Enjoy the marathon tomorrow and take care out there. 😉