My First Ever Marathon (but will it be the last?)

On 14th April I shall be taking part in my first ever marathon. Now those of you who know me will all be thinking "that'll be easy, she's fit and active and always doing sporty things". But most of you won't realise how much of a challenge this really will be for me. Not only am I in my 50s and not getting any younger, with numerous creaky body parts, but as both a type 1 diabetic and a visually impaired person there are numerous additional challenges. Type 1 diabetes requires precision tuning of fuel, insulin, activity, stress and a million other factors to balance my blood sugar in order to avoid in the short term feeling rubbish, unconsciousness (and even death within a few hours) through to long-term risks of all kinds of organ damage, loss of limbs and once again death! Hard enough at the best of times, let alone during a gruelling 26-and-a-bit mile race (and this applies to every step of the training too). Being visually impaired means that while I can do many things on my own, running is hard and most of the time I need a sighted guide to help me avoid obstacles, both static and stationary, especially in poor light or unfamiliar places. Training over the last 6 months has been tough, and thanks to the British weather I've had to train in rain, wind, sleet, snow, hail and the dark, when I'm exhausted, sometimes getting up at 5am just to fit it into my busy working day.

Why Vision of Adventure? Until I discovered this charity, who provide opportunities and support for visually impaired people of all types, ages and abilities to get out and do active things. They introduced me to a whole new world where I didn't have to try to do things on a level par with sighted people and struggle, I didn't have to pretend to be "normal" and get frustrated when I couldn't do everything that fully sighted people could. I learnt to accept working with my disabilities rather than fighting them, and to take the opportunities for support. I learnt to run with a guide runner so that I didn't have to worry about falling, tripping over things, or route finding. I learnt to ride a tandem bike (much safer than a solo bike) and to swim with a guide. I took up triathlon, open water swimming, canoeing, climbing, and much more, and I made a whole heap of friends both sighted and visually impaired, from whom i learnt so much. It literally changed my world. Thanks to Vision of Adventure, I met a wonderful guide runner, Mike, who'll be guiding me in the marathon. We've run together for 18 months and have developed an incredible partnership and friendship. And in addition to just guiding me, he plays the very important role of keeping me entertained and motivated while we're running! Finally, Vision of Adventure have provided me with top-class coaches who've worked with me to help me train and to convince me that I could do so much more than I ever thought I was capable of. As a child, I watched the London Marathon every year on TV in absolute awe, and never thought that one day I could actually run that far. We'll see if I make it!

If you can spare even the price of a coffee, or half a cup of coffee, it will all help Vision of Adventure to keep going and help so many visually impaired people, whether it's to run their first 5k, try a new activity, or to complete an Ironman. Raising £500 could enable a series of 12 online fitness classes to take place over the winter, for instance. Raising £800 would essentially cover the cost of enabling one place for a visually impaired person to attend an activity weekend. Every little helps, as they say!