The Challenge

On 10th August 2024, I will be running the Paris 2024 Marathon Pour Tous. The Marathon Pour Tous (Marathon For All) is a unique event, and for the first time in Olympic history, a participant marathon (and 10km race) is being held. This follows the same route as the Olympians, and is held on the same day as the men's race, and just a few hours before the women' race! For more details, see the website here: https://marathonpourtous.paris2024.org/en/

Alongside this mammoth challenge, I am committed to raising £2000 for the Alzheimer’s Society. A charity supporting to provide help and hope for everyone living with dementia. For more details, see the website here: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/

I won my place through my Employer, EDF Energy and have a series of events planned to support to raise the amount. Any support you are able to provide would be greatly appreciated.

Training to date

Another Half Marathon (28-Apr-24): After achieving 1:37 in my last Half Marathon, I set my sights on achieving 1:35 this time around. However, as the race neared, my nerves set in, and the pressure I had placed on myself felt too high. I therefore took the decision to reduce the pressure and run based on how I felt on the day.

On the day, I was feeling good, but decided to focus on enjoying myself, practising fuelling and limiting the risk of injury. I absolutely loved this event – I felt fitter and manged to smile most of the way around. I also achieved a chip time of 1:40 (1:38 on my watch!) which I was thrilled with.

The Half Marathon (03-Mar-24): Having trained intensely for the past 20 weeks, the half marathon was finally here. I set myself a goal of: Gold - 1:35, Silver - 1:40 and Bronze - 1:45 and achieved 1:37. A half marathon PB! I am thrilled with this achievement but have entered another half marathon at the end of Apr-24, hoping to achieve 1:35!

Cross Country Races: Throughout the winter I have been competing in a series of Cross Country Races to improve my fitness. The hardest of which occurred 10-Feb-24 at Margam Park. The route was so muddy and featured a giant hill that we had to run up twice (124m elevation over 6.7km!)!

Marathon Training (19-Oct-23) #1: EDF hosted a training day with over 100 employees all taking part in the Marathon Pour Tous (10k and marathon event). The training day was held at the INSEP - an incredible facility that would be home to the French Olympic Team (and at the time was hosting the England Rugby Team!). The day was spectacular with so many great activities. I had an amazing day and feel incredibly lucky to have secured this opportunity. I also reflect just how well organised the day was and how welcome I was made to feel.

Marathon Training (16-Oct-23) - a plan and some goals: having identified a half marathon local to Bristol in March 2024 to enter, I established a detailed training plan. The intent being to build a good base fitness ahead of starting marathon training 16weeks before the race. Today was the first day of this plan and it involved a short 5min run to benchmark against.

Pre Marathon Training: having found out I had been lucky enough to secure a place in the Paris 2024 Marathon Pour Tous all I could think and talk about was running. With thoughts of the marathon consuming me, I started an unstructured training plan, clocking up lots of miles! However, I soon came to realise this was unsustainable and that I'd need a plan and some goals...