Monday 6 May 2013

Belfast Marathon Walk


I'm very pleased to say that all of the Sing for Life walking team completed the 9 mile Marathon Walk in good time today. The advance group, myself included, finished the walk in a little under two and a half hours. The weather was fine and with the enthusiasm of the event, we walked a good bit quicker than we had done in training.

A good proportion of the walking team are cancer survivors. I feel very proud of them all as I've been their trainer for the past couple of months. We undertook this challenge to raise funds for Cancer Focus, the primary cancer charity for Northern Ireland. People have been generous, many thanks to all of our donors. The Just Giving page is still open for donations.

I managed the walk very well, despite a few aches and pains en route. It felt very good to be involved in a mass participation event again (there were about 18,000 taking part today). I was remembering that my last big event of this sort was running the London Marathon in 1992, when I equalled my best time of three hours and twelve minutes (posted a decade earlier).
 
But that was a swansong of sorts, for a persistent back injury put paid to my running career a couple of years later. So I took up cycling and was very actively involved until not long before I became ill in 2011. I'm looking forward to getting back on the bike this summer.

 
The advance group all smiles at the finish

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