"A passion for driving, a passion for winning"
Dan Raises £4666 for Charity!
22/6/08 St Catherine’s Hospice trustees receive Dan’s marathon sponsorship total
Local rally driver come marathon runner, Dan Boardman, raised £4666 for St Catherine’s Hospice in Preston for their first every entry into the race.
Dan won the ballot to run for St Catherine’s in January just 12 weeks before the run.
“When I got the call to say I had an entry I was excited about having the opportunity to run for the hospice and that it was the 100th anniversary of the London marathon, but I soon realised the task ahead. I managed 3 hard weeks of training when my achilles heel started to cause excruciating pain. My physio told me to rest for 3 weeks, then 2 weeks later it happened again! It was frustrating but 12 weeks is not a lot of time to train for a marathon! 2 weeks before the start my achilles went again so all I could do was rest and hope for the best.”
On the day, Dan’s race started well averaging an 8-minute mile pace, but although he was surviving the achilles injury, just two miles in, he developed an agonising pain in his right knee. He managed to block it out until the 20mile mark when a physio stretched it off for a minute! Finding it near impossible to start to run again, Dan still managed to get to the end in a very respectable 4hours 19minutes.
“I couldn’t believe my knee went just 2 miles in. I pretended it was supposed to be like that and carried on, sticking to my sub-4 hours goal up until the 20mile marker when everything was hurting and I was convincing my self I had to finish. From then on it was war with my body and my mind to get to the end - it is defiantly the hardest challenge I have had mentally and physically. I can appreciate what the other competitors go through now! I vowed never to do it again but who knows, people have much worse things to go through. I am fortunate to be able to raise money for St Catherine’s Hospice whose staff are angels! I would like to say thank you to all the individuals and companies who kindly sponsored me and also a huge thank you to the staff at St Catherine’s.
Dan raised a massive £4666 on his 12 week marathon adventure, well done to Dan for finishing the event and raising the money! I’m sure you can do it again Dan?