Paul's London Marathon for Headway East Northants

Having completed my first Marathon earlier in the year, I've been looking for the next challenge and have decided to run another one! Headway East Northants is a charitable organisation that provides support and services to survivors of brain injury, their family members and carers.

This is an area that is very close to my heart as I lost my own father to a head injury which led to him being in a coma for 2.5 years before, sadly, passing away. In the past I have raised funds for the units that cared for him; however, this year I have the opportunity to raise money for a charity doing exceptional work looking after those who survive their injury and allowing them to lead a fuller life. Further details of the work that Headway does can be found on their website at www.headwayeastnorthants.org.uk

The fundraising target for Headway is 1250 (through this page I need to raise 1050 - before Gift Aid - due to some other generous donations directly to the charity). I would very much like to smash through this for all of the excellent work they do. Follow my training journey on Strava (www.strava.com/athletes/fletch_runs) and through the regular updates on this page.

Thank you for visiting my page; all money donated will go to a very, very good cause.

It's done! Not a pretty race or one that went the way I had hoped but the best laid plans and all that... After a few days off I'll be back on the road and hope to run for Headway again in the future!!  With all my thanks to the kind support and generosity that everyone has shown in support of this fantastic charity, your donations mean the world to me. Thank you.

Things just got very real. The training is over (all the long runs are done) but the nerves are kicking in as I have my starting time and location now - hopefully I'll have a bib number soon. I'm excited to be running this one although am only too aware of the effort ahead and, at the moment, the weather is looking kind for race day. Just a few more gentle taper runs to fit in and lots of pasta to eat!

Holidays aren't usually great for marathon training but I managed to run around 86km while we were away (as well as cycle, walk, paddle board and kayak)! It's all in a good cause and time is ticking by to the London Marathon so anything you can spare would be most appreciated.

Just as soon as I get clear of COVID (thankfully it seems to be very mild), I'll get back onto the longer runs!

89 Days to go. 336km (202miles) in 76:19 so far!

Thankfully, things are on the mend and the last couple of weeks have been spent having physio and gradually upping the running load on my sprained ankle. Things are heading in the right direction and I'm starting to think that this will be achievable - having had a few doubts over the past couple of weeks. The aim is to get back to a steady half-marathon over the coming days and then build from there.

I also have to add the news of a very generous donation from Sir Ewan and Lady Jenny Harper of Titchmarsh. They have kindly donated the sum of £200 to Headway meaning that this page's target is now £1050. This goes a long way towards my fundraising target and has pushed me well into the second half of my 'pledge' amount.

Meanwhile, back to the training...

Days ticking by now and we're officially into the 16 week training period for the London Marathon. Unfortunately I badly sprained my ankle last Monday and am giving it a good rest period before getting more serious miles back in (and hoping that my work for the Manchester Marathon isn't all undone yet). All things being well, I hope to be back into training late this week or early next week and that better news waits ahead!

137 days to go and I'm pretty much at one third of my fund-raising target for Headway. I've run 165km (102 miles) in 14 hours and 20 minutes since the decision to do this was taken.

Not enjoying the warmer weather but the effort is worth it for the very kind donations that are coming in - all to an excellent cause. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

OK. 151 days to go (not that I'm counting) and things got a little more real as the official entry forms for the marathon are now complete.

Training total (since the questionable decision to run) has been 49.22km (4hours 19minutes) of running. I'll endeavour to keep this updated as time goes by...

I don't know what's driven me to do this so soon after my first Marathon, but here we go again. 5 months to go until London 2022 and the training starts again. Trying really hard not to let fitness levels drop too much after my efforts leading up to Manchester but also living with the fear of knowing how far it is and also having to train through the warmer months....