My Marathon Homecoming surpassed all expectations.
IGTV highlights:
I got to finish my marathon, crossing the line with my daughter.
My Dad and Mam also joined and ran with us for the last 500m meters – they are both in there 60s (they kept 2m apart to observe social distancing).
My Dad inspired me to start running – he ran London Marathon in 1982 – the year I was born and we ran Great North Run 2017 together to celebrate his 60th birthday.
My running journey started from there.
It is my dream to run London Marathon and have my Dad there to see my cross the finish line and celebrate together.
I also hoped to celebrate my 50th parkrun by running with both my Dad and Daughter together. Before lockdown, I reached 48 parkruns.
Today I achieved both of these goals. But better. Rather than simply celebrating with my Dad at the finish line – we ran the marathon finish together. Along with my daughter.
The bonus was my Mam also joined us too.
The difficult part was not being able to give them a hug.
A dream come true and perfect way to create a special memory to cherish.Better than the original event day plans.
This was a personal, emotional, unique experience – bringing the marathon home to share with my family.
What does your ‘best’ mean?
One of gels had ‘best‘ written on it – this was wrote with the intention of seeing what my best looked like. My best time.
However, a profound realization occured to me as I had my last gel ‘legacy’ – this was not about time. It was about my Dad’s legacy.
Sharing the experience with my family, continuing my dad’s legacy by inspiring my daughter.
Maybe best means, giving the best account of yourself. Rather than being the best athlete, today I was the best human being and parent I could be.
It was bigger than simply running. It was running with meaning.
Today I was my best.
Thank you to everyone for their amazing support over the past few days. The donations for NHS Charities Together and inspiring photos of you all being active.
If you have been inspired today, please share and donate via my JustGiving page below:
