Firstly thanks for visiting this page.

I’ve been flirting with the idea of doing a challenge for charity for a number of years, and had been unable to decide on a suitable event and for which charity; below you’ll find a little backstory of how I came to the decision and ultimately set up this page.

After my father’s death in 2019 from a rare form of blood cancer (multiple Myeloma), it was strongly suggested by the Veteran’s Agency that a contributing factor to his cancers and thus his untimely death, was potentially the result of his military service, and as such my mother should petition the Ministry Of Defence for a “War Widow’s Pension”.

This initial application was rejected in 2020, but she had the right to appeal the decision.

My mother was advised that The Royal British Legion could provide assistance in this process, and so she reached out to them directly; after a quick consultation on the particulars, they agreed that there was some merit to her appeal, and would represent her – for free – taking on all aspects of her case going forwards.

Due to covid and the associated court delays, it wasn’t until Summer ‘23 that her tribunal case was heard, and due to the unwavering support and expertise provided, the appeal was found in her favour by the all the Tribunal judges.

Even had they not won the case, I felt that this generosity needed to be repaid in some fashion and they were the perfect charity to raise some funds for - beyond my yearly poppy donation - as a way of saying thank-you.

Now all was left was to decide on an event – and after picking up an indoor rowing machine just after lockdown, and having completed a Half Marathon in November ‘23 in 1hr36min, I started to toy with the idea of attempting a Full Marathon.

After a couple of months of procrastination I have decided to put my money/body where my mouth is and to commit now also to a date, rather than a vague “Wouldn’t it be nice if….”

And so I have decided to celebrate my 42nd orbit around the sun, on the 2nd of April – 2 months today at time of writing – by attempting a full Marathon on my trusty C2 RowErg from my house. This distance also shares a pleasing amount of symmetry with my age at 42KM (+195m) too.

My training so far has been a little hap-hazard – and I’m not following any training plans – I completed 22KM on the 24th of January, with the aim to ramp up the distance incrementally between now and the attempt in two month’s time.

I’ve set myself 3 tiers of goals for this challenge:

Gold – Complete in 3hours 15mins or faster; at an average pace of 2:19/500m or faster.

Silver – Complete between 3hrs15 & 3hrs30 (2:19/500m - 2:29/500m average pace).

Bronze – Complete slower than 3hrs30.

If you could bung me a couple of quid for such a great cause, who help out so many current and former servicemen and their families, I’d really appreciate it.

Thank-you.

Peter

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