Amaze are a charity close to my heart; they do an excellent job making life simpler for many families in Brighton and Hove. They give information, advice and support to parents of children with special needs and disabilities. Working to empower the parents to help their children live fully socially included lives. In our case they assisted us through the mass of red tape to ensure we got the support we are entitled to for Joseph. 

The marathon is now done, it was a brilliant event. The encouragement from Amaze, family, friends and the other 80,000 that turned up was much appreciated. For those of you that have already donated thank you very much. I do hope more of you will contribute to make the pain of those last six miles worthwhile - the last mile was very unpleasant, particularly with the smell of doughnuts and chips wafting in from the pier!

Regards Neil

Training Blog:

1 July:   Need to get over the injuries before I can start this really.

13 October:   After 5 months of frustration, I can finally do up to 7km and go out 3 times a week without the knee and achilles failing. Considering I now have some sponsors there is no getting out of it.

3 February:   New year, new injury. Now it's the calf muscle. 7km, 3 times a week is a distant memory. "Keep buggering on". If it happens there will be no PBs just survival.

31 March:   18 days to go and the revised training plan is not going well. The most I have done it 18 km which is not even half distance.

11 April:   1 week to go and in a few days time can start carbo loading - basically eat like a pig. Stretching, using the foam roller, 15 mins in cold baths, all in an effort to make sure the calf muscles feel okay. 

18 April:   The legs held it together so I was able to run all the way in 3 hours and 52 minutes. Finally managed to beat Elvis in the last 500 metres.