Lenny runs the London Marathon for the RAF Benevolent Fund

For those of you who have run a marathon before, you will be familiar with the distance 26.21875 miles.  For me, that number has become an obsession as I train for my first (and most certainly my last) marathon, the 2015 London Marathon.  To help you picture the marathon distance, it is approximately the same as the distance by road between the centre of Nairn and RAF Lossiemouth.

A lifelong ambition of mine, I have always wanted to run at least one marathon but for too many years I have put it off and I was starting to think that perhaps it was never going to happen.  However, a quiet Saturday night sat in my quarter changed that earlier this year…..

For a reason that still is a little unclear, I decided that I would try to increase my Twitter followers probably after some banter from someone who had more than me! Anyway, setting myself the ambitious target of 300 new followers, I started to make promises to my Lennians (followers of Lenny) to go running the following morning the more that I got. As the evening went on, it is probably best to say that I got a little over excited and at some point agreed that if I got 2000 total followers then I would run the London Marathon in 2015 and raise £15,000 for the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund (#RAFBF).  Without giving you a minute by minute account of the whole evening, I eventually ended up with 700 new followers in 4 hours and woke up to the reality that I had just promised RAFBF to run the marathon!

There was some logic to that night.  The marathon as already described is something I have always wanted to do and the charity side to give me the motivation.  RAFBF because they are an amazing charity that do so much for serving and ex-serving RAF personnel and families.  Finally, £15k was set as the target for the simple reason that it seemed a sensible (albeit highly ambitious) goal given I am the boss of XV(R) Squadron.

The training for a marathon as I have found out via the Internet and from those who have gone before me is all about putting in the miles.  So after a couple of false starts on my training, I have finally settled down on using a great App called MyAsics (I am sure that other Apps are available).  You simply enter the race distance and when it is, and how fast you can already run and that it gives you a training schedule and an expected race time, which for me is 4hrs 10mins.  Of course, I am rounding that down and have set the goal of running it in under 4 hrs, which I understand is not a bad time for someone over 40 on a first go.  I only have just over 1000km left to run on the training schedule and just less than 6-months.

How can you help me?  There are two ways that you can help, and both are important so doing both would help me most!  First of all, I need plenty of encouragement as although I am well motivated, it is still a long way for me to go.  You will find me on a treadmill in the gym 3-4 mornings a week – so feel free to ask me how the training is going.

Secondly, I need your help in sponsorship.  I am sure that I am like most of you in that I get lots of requests every year to give money to charity, whether it is a TV appeal or from a family member, friend or work colleague.  All that I ask is that out of your pot of charity money for 2015, if you would like to give the RAFBF a donation via sponsoring me then I would appreciate it very much – every pound will help.

Many of us over indulge at Christmas and perhaps a way of helping me out with sponsorship, and yourself out in health terms could be to give up alcohol for a period in the New Year. I know I will be stopping drinking for approximately 2-months prior to the marathon and I am going to put the money that I would spend each week on a bottle of wine, a 4-pack of beer or a Friday night out in to a pot and see how much I save – half of that I am going to sponsor myself with.  So how about it, have a night off – save yourself some money and donate half to me?

What would be really great if lots of you sponsored me with a promise to increase the amount if I break 4hrs – that would be hugely motivational and would help me raise more money.

You can follow my progress on training on Twitter @jonnixonxv and of course the all important sponsorship.