The 10 in 10 club marathon

This weekend, I had the opportunity to go up to Brathay Hall at Windermere to learn more about the charity, to meet past and present 10 in 10 runners, the nutrition and physio sponsors and the inspirational founder Sir Chris Ball who ran the inaugural 10 in 10 aged 70, and to run the marathon route. It was an invaluable weekend, both on a practical level and as a chance to get advice and inspiration from those who had already run the 10 in 10.

We also had got to run the route on Saturday as the first 10 in 10 club marathon. There are 27 people who have run 10 marathons in 10 days at Brathay and they're establishing an England Athletics affiliated club for them. It's hugely exclusive and elitist, and I can't wait to get my membership.. It was pouring down with rain, and all the recent snow melt meant the roads were pretty flooded for large parts of it, but getting used to being wet is fairly vital for the Lake District! In spite of the terrible weather, it reminded me how much I love this race - the first half especially with rolling hills and woodland, then the second half where you get superb views over Lake Windermere. I'm usually pretty slow in the cold and I stopped for sandwich and tea breaks twice, finishing in 4 hours 30, so there's a lot of work to do if I'm going to break the 41 hour world record.

Being at Brathay was a chance to witness the charity's work first hand, and I'm hoping to get to Brixton in South London to see their work there too. It's pretty special how transforming Brathay's investment in these kids is, some of them come from absolutely nothing to having the basic suite of confidence, respect and purpose that enables them to go onto to hugely fulfilling lives. I was always happy to represent Brathay, but now I know more about it, I'm really committed to working alongside them by taking part in their biggest fund raising event of the year and raising the £2k I'm expected to. Several of the golden bond charity places for the London marathon are £2,000 and that includes the runner's costs (each of the TiTs stumps up £500 to cover board, food, physio etc etc before we start raising any cash, all your donations go straight to Brathay). I'm running 10 marathons in 10 days, so I think I need to aim a bit higher than that, it would be nice to get to £2,620 to match the 262 miles. This isn't one of those faceless charities where you feel your cash is disappearing into a black hole, it's directly improving kids' lives. If any of you can spare even a fiver, it'll all add up.