Day 1 – 'First' Training Run and Search For Charity

My sister and I will run the Marathon

Let me introduce you to Sarah Taylor. She's one of my sisters, and whether or not she was drunk when she decided to join me for next year's Marathon is open to debate. She's a visual merchandiser by trade, and part time fashion blogger. From the picture, you would assume she was more pre-occupied with wearing the brightest fucking outfit I've ever seen, but in reality, she seems hell-bent on torturing herself for the next year – much like myself. Fair play.

She and I, along with my other sister Charlotte (who might yet be convinced to join us), set out on our first 'official' training run this evening. Now, I'm not going to lie, in recent years I have been quite a keen runner, so to call this the 'first training run' is just about the biggest load of crap I'm likely to tell you on this blog. It was nice to see what they could do, and especially in Sarah's case (considering she's spent the last year of her life necking the voddy, partying and doing **** all exercise), it was a pretty impressive start. Even for me though, that 26.2 miles looks a bloody long way away still.

At this point I suppose I better give you some news about where we stand regarding what we're really all here for. Charity.

As some of you will most probably already know, there are two main ways of entering into the London Marathon each year. The first is through the ballot, which I believe opens on April 29. It's a good option if you don't think you can commit to raising money alongside your training regime, but with places limited, your chances of getting in via that route are about one in four.

The second option is to sign up to a charity, pledge to raise shit loads of money for them and raise awareness for their cause. I'm going do it this way, because if I play my cards right, I should have my MBE by 40. Only kidding! I have far more sincere, philanthropic reasons for raising money for charity.

The first charity I have applied to is one that is particularly close to my heart. The RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) are a wonderful organisation who not only work tirelessly with scientists to help find ways of preventing blindness, but also make life so much easier for those who are blind or partially sighted.

My dad is registered blind. He suffers from a rare condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa, which he was born with. It affects roughly one in 4,000 people worldwide, and as yet is incurable. Throughout my childhood, I have made numerous trips to the Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, where they have monitored the deterioration of his eyesight. One day he will lose his sight completely. It's a horrible, horrible condition, and how he copes everyday, I'll never know. For that reason, he's my hero, and always will be. For more information check out this link: RP (Wiki)

Today, I received and email from the RNIB, stating that they had received my registration, and would inform me soon as to whether or not they'll let me run for them. In 2013, they had 115 people run for them in the London Marathon, so out of 36,000, it's not an awful lot. The email I received gave me all the ins and outs of the process, but stated that I probably wouldn't find out until July, if I had a place. It said:

"As we only have a limited number of guaranteed charity places, your application will be subject to a selection process. We will start looking through applications in May/June and contacting successful applicants July/August. We hope to contact you by email or phone to let you know if you have been successful. If you have not heard from us by August, it is likely that you may not have secured a place with Team RNIB - if you would like to then be put onto our reserve list, then please do get in touch. 

"If your application is successful, we will ask you to pay a registration fee of £100 and raise a minimum of £1,650 in sponsorship."

As soon as I have a charity, you'll be the first to know, and I'd be so grateful if you would be willing to donate anything – no matter how small. Because, looking at how much I have to raise there has just made me s**t my pants!