I figure it’s time for another ‘proper’ update, as promised, on my journey towards London 2025. This weekend, I think I encountered my first serious mental roadblock.

What you want in life and what you need in life are often very different things. Sometimes, you have no idea what you want until you’ve seen it first-hand. This came to my attention this weekend when doing my write-up for the Imps game. I used the lyric, ‘If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor‘. It’s one of my favourite lyrics of all time, from Sit Down by James, and this weekend, it was absolutely rammed home to me.

The weekend of October 26th wasn’t particularly special this year. I was mooching along with my life, not knowing that something was about to change. I was happy standing still, or at the very least, not running double-digit kilometres as par for the course. I thought I was 100% happy with where I was, but things were about to change. It was that weekend my application went in for the London Marathon, and while I regaled people in the pub of my intent to run it, I was dressed as Jason Vorhees and discovering Tequila Rose for the first time, I didn’t know I wanted it. I didn’t know I needed it. It was just a thing.

Since that weekend, everything has changed. I still never thought I needed it. Wanted? Perhaps. Maybe, being a little egotistical, I wanted what it brought me. Maybe I secretly like the limelight, the fanfare, the feeling like I’m doing something. I don’t consider myself to have a huge ego, but like any person, it’s nice to feel special, and people wishing you luck and sponsoring you do that. I’m now convinced it was fate taking me on a journey and showing me something different, showing me how different I can be and how my life can be. Fate made Martin Hickerton mention it off the cuff. Fate made me consider it. Fate will take me to Greenwich, just as it did two weeks before, when the idea had first been planted. I hadn’t been to Greenwich in a decade, and then I had to be there, where the marathon starts, at the same time I have the seed planted.

I’ve always believed in fate, but it’s hard to spot it at work.

This weekend was the first major roadblock, the first time where I had to question myself, and it feels like it was for a reason. I haven’t even started my proper training yet, and as is customary around this time of year, I went out for a few that turned into a few more and then a few too many. Fate led me into town and took me by the hand, around pubs and clubs, drinks flowing. It left me on Sunday morning, alone with my thoughts and a burning question: I’ve known I wanted to be heading in this direction since late October when it all started, but was that going to be enough?

For two days, I haven’t had an answer to that question. I’ve wrestled with the ill effects of the weekend, sedentary at home, wondering if I had 10km in me or if I really had this journey. I’ve felt sick, tired, and unable to focus properly. I slept most of Sunday, then was wide awake at 4 am this morning. Was wanting it enough? Did I really need it? Physically, there’s no question – your body always knows what it wants, and I want that feeling of being fit, of being able to run, to lift weights and not feel bad about it. I can listen to my body tell me what it wants all day long, but the mind is a different beast. The mind wears the trousers.

I dragged myself out today; there’s no other word for it. My stomach is still messed up, and my head wasn’t in it. It wasn’t just a struggle; it was a chore. What if the people who messaged over the weekend, joking that my drinking isn’t good preparation, were right? What if I got 1km in, or 2km in, and threw up? What if all that effort over the last few weeks was set back by my actions? What sort of example would I be? What sort of pick for the Foundation was I?

It was around 6km that it hit me like a snooker ball in a sock or a full beer can thrown from the back row of a gig. I want the London Marathon. I want the physical benefits I’ve tasted. I want everything the last seven weeks have dangled in front of me. What I hadn’t seen was that I also needed it. To use a worn-out phrase, my head has been a shed since Sunday morning, and yet as I pounded the tarmac around the Lincolnshire Wolds, Roshambo on my headphones, the wind in my face and sweat on my back, I realised I needed it. I really need it.

Martin always said running was good for his mental health, and I used to think, ‘That’s good for him’, but not for me. Yet, out there, a weekend of guilt drained away. Guilt at drinking so much that the people backing me on this journey possibly felt let down. Guilt that the good work I’d put in over the previous weeks had been undone by what I’m reliably told was at least three weeks’ worth of alcohol in fewer than 12 hours.

The guilt dissipated with every step, and I got absolute clarity. I don’t just want what the last few weeks have tempted me with. I need it. I need it to feel myself, to feel a sense of purpose and excitement, a sense of passion and absolute belief in my ability to pull it off. ‘If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor‘ – if I hadn’t got that taste of something I’d never had, a marathon, I wouldn’t even know I needed it. Now, I do.

I’d say that is a huge step, and while I know the next 137 days are going to be the biggest test of my life, the clarity one cold Tuesday afternoon has delivered will help get me through it,

Thank you to everyone who has donated so far; you’ve all been very generous. I’m at £865 already, over 45% of the way to the provisional total. It’s very humbling, and hopefully, if you have backed me and worried that maybe I’d stumbled, I’m seeing things as clearly as ever right now. Thank you.

YOU CAN DONATE HERE