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It was on 29 March 1981 when I ran my first and to date my only marathon.   Bucks Fizz headed the UK Charts with their Euro entry ‘Making your Mind up’. Dave Sexton was about to hand over the reigns at Manchester United to ‘Big’ Ron Atkinson and most United supporters had never even heard of Alex Ferguson who was about to start his managerial career in earnest at Aberdeen.   The fact that it was the first ever London Marathon seemed of little relevance to me at the time. Likewise the training and the preparation were aspects of the event that I approached with the over confidence of youth and a blatant disregard for what was to come.   In fact my training for the 1981 London Marathon consisted of one 13 mile run a fortnight before the race! Pre-race preparation consisted of a night out in London with a mate, who had kindly offered me a pre-race free bed at his flat near the Chiswick fly-over. Not for me the ‘pasta evening’ arranged by the organisers or the months of training and steadily building up the miles. For me it was 5 pints of Guinness and a fish-supper just 10 hours before the starting gun fired. In my defence you should know that at the time I was playing football 3 times a week and training two more nights so quite naturally thought how difficult could a 3½ hour run be?!   Trepidation started to build when I awoke at 6 a.m. on the day of the race. The free bed had turned out to be a mattress and sleeping bag, which my mate duly fell over when he staggered in from the pub. By this stage I had begun to take the following day’s race seriously and insisted on getting an early night which was sort-off achieved as I turned in ahead of mid-night. As I made my way to the start of the race, which then, like now, was in Greenwich, I began to sense that I might have underestimated what was in store.   The other runners all looked very professional, very serious and seemed to spend a lot of time stretching and limbering up. Of particular concern was the fact that most of the grown men were rubbing Vaseline on their nipples and inner thighs. I stopped one runner to enquire why he was doing this. His response only added to my nerves. ‘You’ve never run a marathon before have you’? , ‘No’ I replied, ‘well’ he said, ‘by the end of the day you’ll realise why I’m doing this’. Gulp!   The first half of the race passed uneventfully enough. The cheering crowds were out. The bands played and the cool drizzle of rain kept me and the other 6000 runners relatively hydrated. In fact I did OK until mile 20 when for the first time in the race I stopped running at a water station to take on fluid. The problem was when I came to run again my legs just wouldn’t work! They felt like lead weights and I had trouble just putting one in front of the other. It took a mile for what I now know to have been a build up of lactic acid to work it’s way through my system. When I reached mile 21 I knew I was over the worst and my last 5 miles were probably the most enjoyable section of the race and led to me crossing the line full of running and clocking what I felt was a respectable 3 hours 19 minutes.   Fast forward 31 years 1 month, marriage, 2 kids, middle age and 3 knee operations, including an cruciate repair job, and I am about to embark upon my next marathon, The 2012 Manchester Marathon.   Although I am not quite sure what to expect on the day one thing I am sure about is why I am doing it. I am doing it to raise money for a very worthwhile cause, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.   The name is something of a misnomer since whilst it is based in Manchester it actually is a beacon of children’s health and well being across the whole of the North West including Lancashire, Cumbria, Merseyside and North Wales.   I have set myself a target to try and raise £5,000 for the hospital so they can continue to fund great causes.   Rest assured that whatever I rise will be spent wisely by a great charity, who will ensure that all the money goes towards child care that importantly is not covered by the NHS. In other words your contribution will be 100% value add and will not replace funding that would otherwise have been sourced from the NHS.   In addition to money raised however I am also trying to further raise the public’s consciousness of Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and the truly great work the dedicated staff and do in achieving clinical excellence and in giving families hope and support at what is clearly a difficult and emotional time. The link below will tell you more about the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and the work of the charity <a href="http://www.rmchcharity.org.uk/">http://www.rmchcharity.org.uk/</a>   I appreciate that achieving this money raising target is going to be a major challenge especially in the financially pressed time that we all currently find ourselves in however I would be really grateful for any contribution you can make no matter how small.   As I say I know why I am running, I know it is a truly worthwhile cause and I know that whatever contribution you are able to make will spur me on during the day. Please help by donating anything you can.   Should I hit ‘the wall’ again on the 29 April 2012 I’ll be thinking of you but rest assured this time it will be pasta and water on the night before the race and not Guinness and a fish supper!   Many thanks.   Steve Lewis

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