Sean's London Marathon for the267project!

After eight years of applying I have a place to run the London Marathon! Please consider helping me reach a challenging target of £1,500 to support local youthwork charity the267project!

My journey: I needed this challenge. Lockdowns were not kind to me and I have had to act quickly, having found the email advising me of my place in my spam folder ages after it had been sent! I better understand nutrition, I've lost 35lb and my blood pressure is lower too but there's still work to do in all of these areas. I'm in the last week of the gruelling 16-week training plan which has four weekly sessions and runs that peaked at over three and a half hours / 22 miles. Sometimes the only time I've been able to run these around work and family life is early, rising at 5:00am. I'm well into my 50's and not designed to be a runner so it's not easy work!

Training ends on 02/10, the day of the marathon; I'm keeping to plan and managing a minor injury. My stamina has improved and more latterly some pace improvement too: I'll try for under 4h 30m but that will be tough and will be the longest and fastest I've ever run.

the267project's journey: lockdown, disrupted learning, disengagement, social media pressures, a growing mountain of mental health issues are just some of the post-pandemic challenges young people face. They need to re-learn how and why to meet having relied near solely on a virtual/digital world for so long. So we need to respond and completely re-think, to create and apply new strategies and ways of working and perhaps to make use of approaches employed in our formative years; regressing in order to move forward once again. It's new and challenging 'small steps' territory for us, with a backdrop of fewer paid and volunteer youthworkers and increasing pressures in funding - yet how we look after and develop our young people has never been more critical.

A recent Youthscape report concluded that on the current trajecto

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Nerves are kicking in a little... as picking up my race number at the Running Show in ExCel yesterday evening brings things quite clearly and dauntingly into focus - most of the other people I saw there were young fit beautiful things who looked as though they could run a marathon before breakfast! Details on how you can track me on the day to see if I can shave 17-25m off my one and only previous marathon time six (younger) years ago and try to run it in a challenging (for me) 4h 30m or under, you’ll need to download the ‘Official TCS London Marathon’ app, select ‘Tracking’ and enter my race number which is 46109 as you can’t search by my name as there are two Sean Ryans (who knew?). My race start time is about 10:30 a.m., I've trained hard for five months but I'm nursing an injury and generally I am… apprehensive. Thanks!

Almost there... this is it, the last week of the 16-week training plan, which has me 'tapering down' now until Sunday's marathon. Up until 2-3 weeks ago I was blessed to be injury free but I am currently managing a tendon issue on my left ankle. That said, I have run 22 miles on it so it should be OK I pray and hope. I will try for a sub 4h 30 minutes but that will be a tough challenge for me as it will mean shaving 25-35 minutes off the time from the only other marathon I've run, six years (younger) ago. Wise advice I have read is that a marathon (which is 42.2 km who prefer imperial) really only starts at 30.0 km and I will be keeping that in mind. My run on Sunday just gone was just 60 minutes but I found it, for some reason, really quite laboured compared to earlier much longer runs... I blame not having my morning coffee but regardless it's a concern! I hope to be able to post a live tracking link here later in the week for any of you who want to check out... if it shows me static at St. Thomas' Hospital you know something's gone wrong! Thank you so so much for supporting me and the great work of the267project!