David Hemery prepares his ‘nearly 71 year old legs’ for the London Marathon

 As some of your readers may know I have committed myself to doing this year’s London Marathon.

At the celebration of David Coleman’s life, Dave Bedford, the London Marathon organiser, challenged me to do London this April 26, as he thought I could raise £¼ million for our Charity. (Even half that will be brilliant and I have a little over £50k pledged with six weeks to go)

However as a sprint hurdler, who worked really hard to run once round the track for Olympic gold, 41,600m beyond my preferred distance is no small challenge, especially on my nearly 71 year old legs! However I have my place among the entrants, am committed to doing it and have been training for several months, for this one-off effort.

If any of you would be willing to help, with whatever contribution I’d be extremely grateful. The website for sponsoring me is here. And if you’d like to see more about our Charity have a look at our website.
 
I have great admiration for those with stamina engines. I can’t run non-stop for long and a fellow 400m runner, Ray Ridley, who had a stroke nine months ago, has a similar situation of not being able to sustain endurance running.  Ray said, “I’ll hold you back during the first hour, while your sprinter’s adrenalin is flowing and if we run for between 30 and 48 seconds, your Mexico world record time, and take a one minute recovery walk and if we do that 150 times we’ll finish in 5½ hours!”

So that’s how our training has been.  Personally I would have been extremely happy doing all the running on the Marlborough Downs, but it is necessary to gradually introduce more and more time on the roads, as the London marathon course doesn’t contain grass!
 
Unfortunately, my calves cramped badly recently after a 12 mile stint on the road and doing two more short runs too soon afterwards.  This caused the achilles to become inflamed, so I did a week on my bike.

Sods law came into force when on the third ride when standing on the pedals, going up a slope, the chain jumped off and I went over the handlebars, scraping my left shin and digging a pedal into my right calf.

It is amazing how the body self-heals.  The achilles is less inflamed so walking is fine – even for long distances.  I am trusting that the healing will continue enough to allow me to hit the roads again. Only six weeks to go!
 
I am erring on the side of caution, heeding the wise words from triple jump world record holder, Jonathan Edwards, who said that it’s better to be 100 per cent healthy and 80 per cent fit, than the other way round.

Compression socks help to absorb some of the road shock impact.  If I walked all the way, at 20 minutes per mile average, it would take a little less than nine hours, so five and a half sounds more reasonable.

The only other marathon I did was 39 years ago.  I hadn’t trained for it! I slowed horribly and came home in just under four hours and I swore I’d never do another one without training for it….  I hadn’t accounted for the set back in training time due to minor injuries…please wish me luck…and if you feel moved to assist in my fund raising effort I’d be very grateful.

www.virginmoneygiving.com/DavidHemery

www.21stcenturylegacy.com

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