It’s only days until the 2017 Virgin London Marathon and Livability is proud to have 22 people running in support of our charity. One of our runners is Andy Thompson will be taking on the marathon with his brother Peter – currently taking on the ‘Marathons for the Mind challenge. We spoke to Andy about what he’s most looking forward to in the lead up to the big day.
I’ve wanted to run the London Marathon for years and applied many times. I’d applied again this year through the ballot but couldn’t get in. My brother (Pete Thompson), who had a charity place through Livability for his Marathons for the Mind event, had secretly asked if I could have his place. He gets one as an elite athlete and London will be the 23rd of 44 consecutive marathons he’s running in each country in Europe for Livability. Livability were kind enough to let me have his charity place and I was overjoyed when my brother told me. It means that I can run with him during his event and that we can experience running the London Marathon together. It’ll be a really special day for us and part of a really special adventure for him.
I heard about the charity through my brother. It was his charity of choice to race money for through his Marathons for the Mind challenge and now I understand why! The work that Livability do is incredible, and the support that they have given my brother is exceptional. They make the world a better place, and are incredibly humble about doing so. I’ll be very proud to represent Livability at the London Marathon and will continue to do so for any events I do in the future.
Training can sometimes be lonely, exhausting and repetitive during the low points but the high points are great. I’m lucky enough to run around the parks and canals of East London and watching the city wake up on long runs over the weekend is a precious experience. I’ve mixed things up with quite a half marathon and 10 mile events and found motivation in the bigger picture of running for a great cause with my brother.
My desire to run the event has to be able to provide support for my brother, to help him if he’s struggling and to celebrate with him when he succeeds. To do be in a position to provide that I needed to get fitter, which is a personal goal, but the main point was not a personal target, but to be able to do something for someone I love. I guess what I’ve learnt is the incredible motivation you can gain from the desire to be there for someone you deeply care about and the joy you get from the feeling that you’re involved in something bigger than yourself. It makes the motivation easier because that matters much more than getting a certain time or losing a bit of weight!
I’ll be running with my brother to support him, so we will be going at his pace!
Giving my brother a big hug when we cross the finish line.
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