Today, I completed the Yorkshire Half Marathon with Marc Voltaire and my brother Michael. This has to be one of the toughest half marathons in the country as the first five miles are up hill and in Sheffield the hills seem, certainly to someone from Doncaster, like mountains! On top of this we had to cope with unseasonably hot temperatures. I think it was around 21 degrees, a temperature we would be pleased with in mid summer.
Safe to say it was brutal. We dug deep and made it to the highest climb and we made good time. The worst was over and all the rest would be downhill, we were on track for a really good time!
Things were going smoothly, we saw Jas Pollard’s dad (thanks Shane this really meant a lot!) who cheered us on at about eight miles, and I was feeling good! Then, at about ten miles, I felt real pain in my heels and realised that I had blisters that had broken and had started to bleed into my shoes. The pain was considerable but I was determined not to stop and to finish the run. I am pleased to say I did finish without stopping and this was down to two things. Firstly, I knew that I was running for our students at XP, to raise money for our Futures Fund to help students through their university studies. I couldn’t bear the thought that if I stopped I would let them down and I couldn’t say, hand on heart, that I had run the half marathon – it was about integrity. Secondly, I couldn’t have got through those last three excruciating miles without the support and encouragement of Marc Voltaire.
He epitomised what it means to be crew, showing compassion and support and without him I would have struggled to finish. And that is the greatest lesson I’ve learned from today – without Marc’s support I wouldn’t have achieved something special and the achievement was greater because we did it together. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and donated to our great cause, it is greatly appreciated.
We are crew!
You can still donate for the next few days so click here if you wish to.