I generally don't like to ask for sponsorship when I run marathons, but was asked by Cancer Research UK to do so when I signed up for Paris 2019 and it's such as great cause I thought I should try and raise them some money.

Having made that decision, I then accidentally got a place at the Tokyo Marathon which is 6 weeks before Paris, so I decided to come up with a challenge that would make sponsorship a bit more interesting:

I'm aiming for a total combined time of under 7 hours, which might sound like plenty, but my personal best (set 2 years ago before a big injury set back) is only 3:26. I haven't dipped under 3:35 since.

This means I'm going to need to run Toyko really well, avoid injury and recover fully, then run Paris really well too (perhaps even better, if I've done badly in Japan).

To add a bit of incentive for both sponsors and myself, if I miss this target, I will match every donation made from my own pocket. This might become both very painful and very expensive for me, as I honestly don't know if I'll be able to make it in 7 hours...