Running the London Marathon for Sarcoma UK

Part 1 of Things&Ink editor Alice Snape’s Marathon Diary…

Around three weeks ago, I got the news that I had been waiting for…  I had been accepted to run the London Marathon 2015 for the cancer charity Sarcoma UK …

My heart filled with a mix of excitement, fear and happiness. Excitement, as running the marathon has always been one of those things I want to achieve, and fear, as I have never run close to that distance in my life. I have slowly been building my fitness levels over the past five months, and really enjoying the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle. But a marathon is a whole new level entirely and I am ready for the challenge (I hope). It feels like the right time to do it and for a charity that is very close to my heart.

Let me tell you a little bit about why I applied to run the London Marathon for Sarcoma UK.  My boyfriend’s sister, Katherine, died from Sarcoma over three years ago, in fact she died just a few short months before James and I met. James and his mum, Glenys, support the work of Sarcoma UK to help other families who are affected by Sarcoma. I never knew Katherine, although over the years that James and I have been together, I have slowly learnt more about her – what sort of person she was and her likes and dislikes. In some way, I guess I want to fundraise for Sarcoma to pay tribute to Katherine, who I never met,  but so wish I could have. This is also the reason, why I chose to give all the profits from ‘Miniature Ink’ (the collaborative exhibition with Atomica gallery to celebrate Things&Ink’s two year birthday) to the charity.

But on a very selfish level, I also want to run the marathon, I want to see if I can physically achieve it. To see if I can run the entire distance and do it in a time that I can feel proud of… I am currently on week 3 of the official London Marathon training plan, and I am enjoying being competitive with myself. Beating my own times, and gradually building up the time and distance I can run. (I recently downloaded the RunKeeper app and completely obsessed with miles per minute and figuring out what my “race pace” might be).

So I am running this marathon for Katherine, for James and his mum, for those who are affected by Sarcoma, to support the work of this wonderful charity and, mostly, for myself, because I want to say I have ran a marathon, and also because I want to say that I ran it for Sarcoma UK. So please give as little or as much as you can, so that I can think of all those pennies when I am doing training runs in the cold and dark over winter… Here’s a link to my justgiving page.

I will be keeping you all updated on how my training is going over the coming months in ‘My Marathon Diary’ on this blog, so please offer words of support and encouragement…

Find out more about Sarcoma UK, on their website, www.sarcoma.org.uk, and in previous blog posts.