The day is finally here! I actually ran 42km and I have a LOT to say on it! Stick with us for this ride and find out how bad I felt before heading to Geneva the next morning!

On the 24th April 2023 I completed something only 0.01% of the world’s population complete yearly. I stumbled over the finish line to complete my first marathon and the first time I have ever run 42km in a single race! I loved being able to do it for Asthma + Lung UK #TeamBreathe who were amazingly supportive in the build up and on the day at various stations throughout the race!

Thank you so much to everyone that contributed to help the amazing work that Asthma + Lung UK do., because breathing is a right. You are all awesome! At the moment. I’m at 88% of my target so if you haven’t, would like to, and you’re in a position to donate, please do here!

A bit of background for y’all

So why was this so important to me? Well let’s go back nearly 8 years ago to 24th July 2015. On the way to a festival I wanted to help someone get their bags into a car. But as I got out the passenger’s seat, I forgot I had a laptop bag wrapped round my foot. The weight of me, the weird angle I fell at, and the leg and foot being trapped in the footwell led to some kind of lever mechanism that hurt very badly. I initially thought it was sprained, as did the festival medics that I consulted the next day. So the group I was with fashioned some walking poles out of windbreaker poles, and I got to see my friend play their acoustic guitar set on a lovely wooden throne so I could keep my leg elevated. But that was all the festival I experienced.

On returning to Brighton a couple of days later I went to A&E to get some crutches as was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to get around otherwise. Almost as soon as I arrived, I was pushed into a wheelchair and taken for X-Rays and MRI scans. Now Brighton A&E has a lot of people that have done too much of certain… erm.. .things, but also people with a lot of blood. None of my skin was broken it just looked swollen. I did wonder why I was being rushed through. The nurses were also surprised that I was relatively pain free and didn’t believe that I’d only done paracetamol to that point. After toxicology confirmed, they cave a lot of strong codeine based painkillers, “just in case”.

After being put into this boot, told to elevate constantly and not allow anyone to touch, brush but especially not bump into, I went home. I also had to inject myself with blood thinners daily or I might die.

I was later told the cold hard facts. I had broken all metatarsals in my foot except for the 5th and all the smaller bones in my foot from the ankle down! Virtually every single bone in my foot! Up to this point the worst I did was a disjointed nose when I played rugby at 14, and a few slightly cracked ribs when I was 18 falling through a rotten staircase drunk! But this felt like a lifetimes worth of bones in one go!

The XRay apparently didn’t look too bad, however the MRI showed my bones had so many breaks and holes that my foot looked like it was made of Edam. I was told that we would try to hold off an operation, but nothing was certain about this foot at all.

I would need my foot constantly elevated in this boot for the next 6 months and zero-weight of touch (luckily I was OK to have some touch after a month but no full weight for 6 months). I would then go on crutches if improved,and then rehab at some point in the future.

As a way of adding some humour to receiving this news I asked if when I healed I would get back to skateboarding (possibly), would I be able to swim again (possibly) and would I be able to run a marathon (possibly). I replied well that’s great because I could other than at school the furthest I’d ran since then was for a bus!

Anyhow, as it was, I was able to come out of the boot sometimes after 1 month and some light touch was acceptable, but it was elevated constantly with blood thinners for 5 months. I was able to be free of boot and crutches for 7 months and it was a reminder how fantastic the NHS really is in the UK. All of this treatment was free and I would have no way of paying for this myself!

So 7 months and all good then? Well, no. Without the crutch I had to drag my leg along due to muscular atrophy. The phrase “you don’t use it, you lost it” is a very real thing, and I hadn’t been using my leg muscles on one side for over half a year. I worked in the gym with an amazing personal trainer called Simon Etheridge for the next two years to rebuild the calf and foot muscles. Simon and my ex-wife supporting me at home were amazing people during this recovery, and I am very thankful to them.

Over time I managed to swim and skateboard again! This was great but there was one thing that still remained. And tbh it would have been that way had one thing not happened. The COVID-19 pandemic.

Running During COVID-19

I have mentioned in my first post four years ago (almost to the day) that I had taken up running during COVID-19. It was a way to get out of the prison and experience the world. What started as a £5 donation to the charity Mind and a run of 5km (very slowly), nominated by my friend Lisa Forte, turned into running longer and longer distances. I would run a distance and then walk then rest normally a joint run / walk of 35km regularly. The photo below on the right is what I looked like four years ago, the same as the photo in my first post on here.

I was what was called morbidly obese. I was 18st 1.3lbs, the heaviest I’d ever been and a body fat percentage of around 36%. All the hard work I’d done to heal my calf and foot was being eroded and I do remember before 4th May 2020 I was drinking 3 bottles of red wine most nights as a way of dealing with the stresses of lockdown for a few months. After this initial 5km I wanted to make changes and did.

Some four years later, at 40 years old I’ve finally run my first Half Marathon (Brighton) and my first Marathon (London). I am now 15st 12.8lbs with a fat mass of 17.5%. I still have work to do, but I’m getting better each day.