So, I have been meaning to wrap up my year of marathons and not quite got round to it, to here is a little summary of how it went down.

I guess the headline is that I kind of finished it. I had intended to run one marathon each month, but due to injury, the schedule got juggled about, meaning I didn’t finish one in July, and had to skip August.

When it comes to injuries, you definitely need to take care of yourself and listen to you body, but my year proves it’s also partly down to luck. I got wacked in the knee by a cricket ball, which did some ligament damage on the outside of my knee.

After a painful DNF at the Space Race Marathon in July, and then a month off running, I managed to get back up to distance, help by a nice pair of Brooks Ghost, which are much more cushioned than my normal shoes, I think that really helped my knee.

So twelve marathons done, they are listed out on ‘The Marathons’ page. Stats wise that was 262 ish miles of actual marathon running, backed up by around 1000 miles of training. I did around 1,650 miles of travelling to those marathons, and Strava says the marathons burnt around 38,000 calories. That’s a lot of calories, but I have proved that you don’t need to get too skinny if you drink enough wine!

On the travel side of things a big thank you to Red Funnel, that helped enourmously towards my travel costs, which helped me in turn to help the charity more.

The most important stat though is the £3,500 raised for the NSPCC. That was quite hard, but was achieved but organising a cocktail party, a race night, a ‘Frolic’ run, a prize draw, and endlessly nagging everyone to donate (sorry!).

Overall, I absolutely loved the year of marathons. There was always something ahead to focus on, and doing one a month was not too many (compared to the people I met doing one a week!).

Lowpoints – getting injured, the mud on marathon #1, the massive sense of humour failure at the Yeovil Marathon, not being allowed to defer or anything useful by the Bath Two Tunnels organiser when I was injured, and the Portsmouth Coastal Marathon, though I still don’t understand why it was so hard!

Highlights – London for the NSPCC, running past Mo Farah at the Space Race, the 2 minute silence in the middle of the Remembrance Marathon, trips away to run marathons with mates, getting back to run another PB after my injury and the Portsmouth Coastal, yes it’s a highlight and a Lowlight, it’s that confusing. Best moment for me was finishing the Isle of Wight Marathon with my 96 year old Nan there 🙂

Of the marathons, I’d recommend all of them, but would have more reservations over the Yeovil one as I didn’t like the route that much. New Forest as I’m not a fan of running on gravel and there was quite a lot of it, and it was my first run back from injury. Favourites were London, Southampton, Bedford Motor Circuit and the Track Marathon (yes I mean it!).

Thanks for listening 🙂