Blog: My London Marathon bid for St Catherine’s

Oliver Drury is a Corporate Finance professional, currently based in Manchester with family and friends in Preston. He’s training for this year’s London Marathon in support of St Catherine’s. 

I first heard about the opportunity to run the London Marathon for St Catherine’s through my partner’s mum Pam, who volunteers at the hospice’s charity shop in Longton. The opportunity to raise money for a local charity and raise awareness of the amazing work they do to support people facing life-shortening conditions was all the motivation I needed to enter.

I was absolutely delighted to find out in November that I had been drawn out as the successful participant to run and represent St Catherine’s in what would be my second marathon after running Manchester last year.

At first the thought of having to embark on a fundraising journey and intense training, whilst working full time, felt daunting but with the help of staff at the hospice, I was soon up and running.

With the marathon less than 5 months away, I knew that it was time to kick off the fundraising and training, a new pair of trainers (supposed to make you faster, apparently!) were purchased and the training plan was lined up.

Three runs a week, one easy, one tempo and one long run felt manageable alongside work and other commitments. All was going well until disaster struck during an early morning tempo run… a dull pain turned out to be a minor muscle grade tear.

It meant four weeks on the sidelines and my long runs soon became 30 minutes on the cross-trainer (which if you don’t like running in the gym, cross-training I found to be even more tedious).

Despite the on-going recovery, it didn’t hamper my fundraising efforts, with numerous emails, messages, phone calls and social media posts to friends, colleagues, and family alike, it fortunately equated to receiving many generous donations.

Four weeks’ of rest, recovery and too many repetitive sessions on the cross-trainer, and I finally received the all clear from the physio to re-commence my training! Starting off building up the distance I managed a 34km run which I was ecstatic with.

Hopefully as I build up the mileage, I’ll have a strong tailwind with the running and making the start-line will be a formality. I’ll let you all know how I get on!

I would be extremely grateful for any donations to help me raise as possible for the incredible work St Catherine’s does to help the local community.

Please click here to donate via my GoFundme page or to write a message of support to help me get over the line, alternatively click here to donate through the St Catherine’s Hospice website, making sure to mention ‘Oliver’s London Marathon’ in the comments box at the checkout stage.

Thank you!

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