We decided at the start of the year that we wanted to raise money for the NSPCC. Children don’t always know who to trust with their worries. Without a safe place to turn, they can put their trust in the wrong person or keep their fears to themselves. Home isn’t a safe place for every child. NSPCC’s services help children who’ve been abused, protect children at risk and find the best ways to prevent child abuse from ever happening. Some alarming statistics: 

- Half a million children suffer abuse in the UK every year
- On average, two children a minute contact Childline for support.
- 7 children in a classroom experience abuse before they turn 18
- Child cruelty offences in England have increased by 106% increase in 5 years.

You can donate via our donation page here! 

Training update

The goal:

April 16th: Boston Marathon (David Sub 3 hours)

April 22nd: London Marathon (Rebecca 3 hours35 (PB) and David Sub 3 hours)

Rebecca's training update at Week 8

 After saying I wouldn’t do another training block through the winter months… here I am 8 weeks in. Whilst I may talk about the long dark lonely runs a lot it’s also incredible reflecting on how far you can come as the weeks progress and certainly satisfying when I start talking about a 22km run like it’s a parkrun and feeling my body adapt.

We’ve all heard the stats ‘only 0.1% of the world has run a marathon’ and whilst that phrase is over used, it’s not hard to see why it might exist…marathons are not for the faint hearted no matter how easy David makes it look! The British winter has not been kind. Dark and very very very damp! A very flooded river in Henley has meant that most of our runs have been along a 1.6km stretch of road…yes that’s 22km in 1.6km stretches! 

All this said, I’m inspired everyday by David’s passion and enthusiasm to run and it is infectious. I am constantly trying to push myself harder and already talking about paces that at one point I would have struggled for 5km let alone potentially 42km. 
Both of us doing this together is also brilliant. Though we are not running together, knowing what the other is going through and how hard they are working is so motivating. It also helps when it’s both of you analysing splits on Strava on a Saturday night! 

David's training update at Week 8

As Rebecca said, I am fairly sure we promised ourselves that we wouldn't be training for another marathon at this time of year again, it is funny what you choose to forget about an experience in favour of what will actually be a tiny moment in time when you cross the finish line! 

Alongside my training program I am using my learnings from my PB run last year in Hamburg (2hrs50) as a guide. The graph below shows the amount of volume and individual runs I have completed in the first 8 weeks for each block. You can see that I have significantly increased my volume and number of runs compared to the Hamburg block in 2023 whilst still keeping the same average pace and heart rate in training. 

I have just had my toughest week of feeling generally really flat in training. I am reminded the rule of thirds in Marathon training; 1 third great, 1 third ok, 1 third really bad. I think I have been on the right side of this so far but as a result week 9 will be easy! 

I've found it really helpful to carry out my long runs of 28-32km each week with the main session of 4 X 5km at 4:00-4:05min/km with someone else and in a controlled environment like the 2.5km loop at Battersea Park or 2km straight in Henley. That said 14 laps of Battersea Park gets a bit repetitive but not as bad as the 1.6km straight in Henley!

In the next 4 weeks we will start to think about the pacing for Boston to be able to run a sub 3hour marathon in London 6 days later. I'd love to run a PB but we will need to be sensible as the goal is to run both under 3hours. 

We would love you to donate to the NSPCC through our fundraising page here.