UPDATE: So this hasn't quite gone to plan and it's time to update this page! I was due to run Brighton Marathon in April 2020, my first (and probably last) marathon! I trained really hard and unfortunately, just a few weeks before the marathon, it was cancelled due to Covid-19. I found this out on the Friday but still had to run 20 miles on the Sunday! That was tough. It was by far the furthest I had ever run - just 10km away from a full marathon. But I had to do it as I had booked it and it ended up being the last race before lockdown. Hardest race I've ever run!

The marathon date then changed to 20th September 2020. I'll be honest, as we went through the summer, I struggled with training. I couldn't run much more than 10k, partly because I had got a bit of lockdown fever and hated everything but mainly because it was too hard in the heat. And as we approached the date I knew it probably wasn't going to go ahead so I made the decision to defer to April 2021 even if the September date went ahead. Again, a few weeks before the rescheduled date, it was cancelled as expected.

So now we're looking at April 2021. Great! Winter training again, third time lucky, I can do this! However, this was postponed again this week. Date has changed to mid-September and I know I just can't do the summer training. So I have made the decision to get a refund and I promise I will rebook as soon as the world is a bit more normal (hoping for April 2022).

However, I had set my heart on running a marathon this year and when I found a unique opportunity, I jumped at it! Seemed like a good idea at the time but now we approach it, I'm getting a little nervous. So what I'm doing is this weekend, I will run a mile on the hour every hour from 8am Saturday morning until 8am Sunday morning. And yes, that is when the clocks go back so 25 hours in total! So we're going to add a bit extra onto the first few miles so that after 25 hours we will have run the full 26.2 mile marathon. And then I'm going to sleep all day Sunday after being up for over 25 hours!

I know I sound crazy but I'm actually doing it to raise money for my lovely little five-year-old cousin Chloe. I raised money for her in 2019, but we still need more. She's making amazing progress but she's still got a long way to go and having the funding takes a bit of the pressure off. Read her story below:

At the age of three, Chloe caught a virus in September 2018 that attacked her spinal cord and paralysed her left arm. She also briefly lost the ability to walk or even sit up. She spent four months in hospital where she worked extremely hard to re learn how to walk and gain strength in her core.

In July 2019 Chloe was extremely brave and had a 13 hour nerve transfer operation in the hope that it would help her regain movement to her arm and hand. She is now working hard every day doing physio and electronic stimulation and every week doing hydrotherapy to ensure that she maximises the recovery from her surgery. NHS support has dried up so all her physio and hydrotherapy sessions are now provided by private suppliers.

More information: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6512033/Warning-issued-mystery-rise-rare-polio-like-illness-England.html