Update: July 2021. Obviously this event was postponed due to Covid. It is now happening in October 2021 and I will run it. If it ends up being postponed again I will run it on the new date.

On December the 8th 2019 I was out doing a routine run. I'm used to running and do it a lot and had ran the Athens marathon only the month before. 5km into my run, our best knowledge is that I fainted. I hit the concrete hard head first, completely unconscious and fractured my skull in two places. I also obtained a pretty horrendous black eye that took nearly two months to heal. 

I opened my eyes laying on the concrete surrounded by a few people and the ambulance arrived moments later. I then spent a day and a half in hospital and was off work for a week. 

I checked out of hospital at the earliest possible opportunity and returned to work at the earliest possible opportunity, in hindsight because this enabled me to tell myself that everything was okay. 

For the first few weeks back I found that I would get very tired much easier and that it was harder to concentrate when things were loud. Luckily this subsided after a few weeks and I believe I've been very lucky to be fine. However, I'm very aware that I quite easily, might not have been so lucky. I could have hit my head at a slightly different angle and come out of it much worse. 

I work in psychology professionally and am well aware of the potential issues that those who experience brain injury or trauma can struggle with. 

I would like to encourage people to donate to Headway who are a local charity who work in helping people with such issues. I understand that they are in danger of folding if they are unable to generate more funds. 

For this reason I am running the London Marathon for Headway Nottingham. 

The photo I uploaded with the black eye was taken one week after the incident. It felt too bad to want to photograph it before this point. 

As a final point there is some talk about the London marathon potentially being postponed due to coronavirus. If this were to happen, I will of course run it on the new date.