A few years ago I organised a group of cyclists to tackle the John O'Groats to Lands End route in 2½ days. Despite encountering all sorts of weather we managed it - to the minute (60 hours!). First box ticked. Then in April 2009 I ran the Flora London Marathon, a target I'd always wanted to achieve. Second box ticked.
The trouble is I don't seem to have many goals like those and ran out of boxes pretty quickly. However, I've got the bug and wanted the next challenge.
Given that it took 500 miles and many, many hours of training to justify the London Marathon run I wanted to see if I could step this up to tackling 12 marathons in 12 months during 2010. Getting fit is one thing but staying fit is quite another.
Still, there's more to this than just my personal challenge. When a very good friend of mine suffered a seizure in the middle of the night in October 1998 he was not at the time aware that he had just started out on a major battle against a brain tumour. Apparently, life started to return to a semblance of normality until a routine scan in October 2005 confirmed that the existing tumour had haemorrhaged and he was immediately admitted into hospital for an operation. 95% of the tumour was removed but, because of the location, 5% could not be completely eradicated.
What appeared to have been benign or low-grade was now identified as high-grade Oligodroglioma - now a type 4 high-grade tumour.
October 2008 saw further scans, further analysis, and ultimately the decision to operate once more. Since then, he has continued with courses of chemotherapy, steroids and the constant battle against this cancer. He has been battling for 11 years, so one year of my personal challenge is no comparison.
To find out more about the challenge please view my website: www.12in2010.com
John Stanford, 1st January, 2010
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