I am very pleased to report that I completed the Lisbon Marathon yesterday, this being the last of the six marathons that I took on this year to mark my turning 66 in March. In this personal challenge – that I called ‘The Year of the Sixes’ – I was aiming to raise £60,000 towards six Pipal Tree projects in Nepal. This year, I previously ran Seville in February, Barcelona in March, Milan and London in April and Cologne (downgraded to a half-marathon because of illness) last Sunday.
The event involved an early morning start – in a futile bid to beat the heat of the day – catching a 6.40 a.m. train that was the first of a number of trains running at ten-minute intervals depositing runners at Carcavelos, about 20km west Lisbon. After the usual warm-ups in the growing daylight, the runners set off in waves from 8 a.m. The run wasn’t going to be a straightforward run back into the city along the coast. Instead, we had to run an additional 9km away from the city before doing a major u-turn at Cascais to follow the coastline back to the finish line in the Praca do Comercio, the huge waterfront square right in the centre of Lisbon, beside the River Tagus.
The run was very much a case of the three h’s – heat, humidity and hills. By the end of the race I found myself running in 25 degrees. So, I was very pleased to be able to complete the run in 5 hours, 37 minutes. But I always say that the biggest challenge in any marathon is getting to the start line as there’s always 101 good reasons not to. It’s very interesting to note that of the 14,750 registered runners from 121 countries, there were just 9,164 finishers, these comprising those who both started and finished the race within the allotted maximum time of six hours.
In total, yesterday’s sponsorship amounted to £2,962, not including Gift Aid (UK tax reclaim) bonuses. The year of the sixes has secured £10,900 of the £60,000 target, including sponsorship raised by Alex Aucott and Pipal Tree Treasurer John Clark, but donations are still coming in. This remains a fantastic result given how tough the economic climate has been this year and also how generous our supporters have been in other Pipal Tree appeals including for The Big Give and the latest disaster relief in Nepal.
This will be my last ever full marathon as I think having completed 13 marathons for my charity since I turned 51 is more than enough. Also, I have just come to understand that, for some reason, marathon performance drops dramatically in runners once they reach 65. Looking ahead, I will change my fitness regime to more age-appropriate activities including half-marathons, Tai Chi and gym work combined with my greatest passion which has always been distance walking within the UK.
By so doing, I will protect the nerves that maintain balance, the muscles that preserve strength and the brain cells that protect me from overdoing it in future!
