Paris Marathon Special Report
My name is Ben Holden and I ran the Paris Marathon to raise funds for Enable Ability,
This is my story
This was my first marathon and when I signed up to enter the race I really wasn’t sure what to expect. It had all started following a phone call from a close friend in October 2009. He had called to tell me that he had entered the Paris Marathon in April 2010. This was going to be his first marathon, and after enthusiastically telling me about all the training he had planned he pointed out that if he could do it then there was no excuse for me not to enter. Unfortunately, that was a challenge I could not ignore!
I had always wanted to run a marathon, but for years I had always found reasons to tell myself, ‘maybe next year’. It had always been just that little bit too much like hard work to commit to in the past. But then, all of a sudden, it really was going to be next year, and that’s when the questions started: Just how hard is it to run 26.2 miles? How much training should I be doing? What time, if any, should I be aiming for? And perhaps most importantly, am I actually going to be able to complete it? Thank God for websites like runners world, the US Airforce for their extremely good Marathon Training Guide, and all the dozens of people I suddenly came across who had run a marathon before and who I could interrogate for advice!
I entered the marathon on the 11th October 2009, six months to the day before the race, but I kept the news of my entry quiet for a long time, not even telling my family until after Christmas. My greatest fear was this; what if I tell everybody I’ve entered the marathon and then once my training has got underway I find I can’t complete it? Fortunately, as it turned out, this was something I needn’t have worried about. As my training progressed so did my confidence, and as I started to tell people about the race I soon realised how helpful their support was in encouraging me believe that I could do it. Now with that support in place, and with the date in the diary, there was plenty of motivation to ensure that I stuck to my training plan.
But something was still missing. What about sponsorship? I wanted to raise money for charity if I possibly could, and what better opportunity to raise money than with my first marathon. So the next question was; which charity? All I knew was that I was keen to find a local charity, and one which could be seen to be doing valuable work and making a real difference to the lives of people in the community. As soon as I read about Enable Ability I knew immediately that this was the charity I wanted to support. I had received a copy of their annual statement at my office highlighting the valuable work they perform and the services they provide for disabled people in the local community. I therefore set up an online sponsorship page with the charity donation website, justgiving.com, and emailed everyone in my hotmail account. The sponsorship soon started to come in. Now with not only a marathon to complete, but with the charity and everyone who was sponsoring me counting on me to complete it I had some serious training to do.
Over the last six months I have completed 92 training runs which totalled over 600 miles and over 90 hours of running! I’ve run in the dark, through fields of ice and snow, in pouring rain and gale force winds. So was it worth it and how did it go? The race itself went well. The weather was ideal, not too hot and with a cool breeze blowing over the River Seine. The route went right through the centre of Paris starting and finishing at the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elysees and along the river past the Eiffel Tower. I kept the pace slower at the beginning and picked it up a little after half way. Even so, by mile 18 it was starting to get uncomfortable. The last few miles, as I was running through the Bois de Boulogne (a large park in the West of the city), were particularly tough and it took a lot of hard work to get over pain. However, with the determination not to let down my charity or my sponsors, and with some motivational music playing on my ipod I finally managed to stagger over the finish line!
I was very pleased indeed to discover that my official finish time was 3 hours 41 minutes and 33 seconds. Nearly 20 minutes faster than my target time!
Out of the 30,976 runners to finish the race I came 8,714th
And most importantly, I managed to raise over £800 (including Gift Aid) to help the valuable work of an extremely good charity
