A Journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step
My new obsession - Running
The Journey
HomeClimbing
Travel
Accident
Hospital
Recovery
Running
Headway
Fund Raising
3 Peaks, 2 Legs and a Bike
Recovery
Work AssistanceInitial Problems
Ongoing Problems
Recovery Diary
Fund Raising
Just GivingMedia and Press
Running
Event ResultsShort Events
Ultra Distance Events
Neolithic Marathon
High Peak Marathon
Pembroke Coast Path
Headway UK
Headway Swindon
Further Reading /
Inspirational books
Touching the Void
Joe Simpson
It's not about the Bike
Lance Armstrong
The Lore of Running
Tim Noakes
I initially started running just to get back to a reasonable level of fitness after my stay in hospital.
I had started some short jogging/runs to assist me in my recuperation, only around 3-4 miles to start of with. I do not think I could have done this unless I had been reasonably fit before the accident.
I concentrated mainly on off road running as my coordination was not reliable enough to run on roads with the hazard of veering off in front of traffic.
I came to the conclusion that if I was going to be running then I may as well do something useful especially as I had been so fortunate with only having minor affects from what was a very serious accident. I decided to use my running as a means of raising funds for Headway – the brain injury association, as there were other people who suffered far worse affects from less serious accidents.
With this in mind I entered the Neolithic Marathon, an off road marathon from Avebury to Stonehenge in May 2004 and raised £1200 for Headway and £800 for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust
Within a few weeks of completing this I was looking for a harder event to use for fund raising for 2005. Another off road event, the High Peak Marathon in March 2005 seemed suitably hard; 40 miles around the Derwent watershed in the Peak District in the winter, and in the dark as the event did not start until 11pm. This time as there were 4 of us in our team and we raised £3000 again for Headway
In 2006, I did something that should be have been easier, not in winter or the dark. I ran the Pembrokeshire Coast Path at the end of May. ‘Only’ 170 (or 186 depending on your source) miles which I did over 6 days.