10 Marathons in 10 Days

nikebee

nikebee

nikebee

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Howdy!

Thought I'd share with you guys what my boss is aiming to do.

Roughly two years he successfully ran a 3 in 3 marathon challenge and raised a fair amount of cash for charity. This year, he will be running The Brathay Challenge: 10 marathons in 10 days (that's roughly 262 miles!).

He's also been convinced (read: bribed) to wear an England rugby top for one of the legs of the challenge... a tough thing to do for any Welshman! :eek:

He's run about 14 marathons to date, and also competed in the Zurich Iron Man Challenge.

If you donate £50 or more, you will also get the opportunity to get a limited edition 10 in 10 T-Shirt! Fantastic!

The marathons will all start on the 9th of May, but you can continue to donate for the next 60 days or so. The marathons will take place around Lake Windemere each day.

10 marathons in 10 days may seem a tall order, but it does not compare to how some children in the UK feel when there seems there is no choice, they do not know where to turn and usually its the wrong way!

Brathay work in partnership with various national and regional youth agencies in helping children and young people overcome difficulties arising from their personal and social circumstances, and give them the skills to make positive choices about their behaviour and attitude. They currently work with over 5000 children and young people each year.

So please help to make a difference!

So far he's raised just over £7,000 (smashing his original target of £2,000).

If anybody on OcUK would care to donate, then please feel free to do so via the following links.

Donating through this site is fast, simple and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor him: the Brathay Hall Trust will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, you can an extra 28% in tax will (free of charge) and it be added to your gift at no cost to you as gift aid! This means that rather than the government claiming the 28% it will go to the charity!

http://www.10marathons10days.com/ (His site)
http://10marathons10days.blogspot.com/ (His blog)
http://www.justgiving.com/matthewevans (Donate here!)

Please feel generous! Thanks a lot! :D
 
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ErNciLator said:
dude 262 miles in 10 days,

lets say you run for 10 hours, and sleep for the other 14...

so that's 100 hours to do 262 miles, or an average speed of 2.6 mph? That doesnt sound too hard or fast to me?
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Yeah brilliant spirit there :rolleyes:

If you're that confident that it's so easy, then feel free to run yourself.

The ten marathons are over ten days yes, but you have to run one marathon each day.

The marathons start at 10:30pm with the winners expected to finish by 1:10pm. Everyone should finish by roughly 3pm with the awards being given out at 3:30pm

It's not a 10 hour run, its roughly 6 hours of running for the slowest people. Matt (my boss) ran the London marathon in 3 hours 43 minutes as an example of the pace he'll be running at.

If he keeps that pace up it would be an average speed of roughly 7 miles an hour (if my sketchy maths is correct).

That said, if you'd like to run 262 miles at a decent pace and do the 10 marathons challenge feel free to sign up on the Brathay website.

It's for a good cause ;)
 
Thanks for the guys that have said they'll put money towards this :)

I'll bump this every few days to reattract attention and if I get in touch with Matthew (or if he remembers to update his blog!) I'll keep you posted on how the marathons go too :)

First one is tomorrow!
 
Times from last year...
http://www.brathaychallenge.com/brathay-10-in-10-marathon-times-2007.asp

I think he's aiming for around 4 to 4 and a half hours per marathon.

The main difficulty is, as you said, pacing yourself. Running the first marathon or two at a pace that is a lot slower than you would normally be able to cope with.

As I already said, he can easily run a marathon in around 3 hours, but he'll have to drop the pace off by an hour or so to comfortably know that he can finish all 10!
 
Updates from the Blog :)

Day One:
First things first, apologies for a lack of pics, but my darling wife has the camera and i had to get posting!!

So we arrived here in the Lakes on Wednesday and what a place!! The scenery is breathtaking and the people so welcoming! After settling in and a short walk around Ambleside on Thursday morning it was off to Brathay where I met up with every one and the formalities of the event began.

Our base at Brathay again has the most amazing views, but the arty fartyness was soon to come to an end when we climbed aboard the mini bus for a trip around the course. I have run Snowdon, and this personally is worse! So Brathay, well done, this was one of those real evil jokes that you simply have to salute!

That evening was spent with the nutrition team that were to supply drinks for the 10 days and also energy bars! So lets put this into perspective. Out of the 11 running there is comfortably over 1000 marathons of experience. When offered something completely new, we were all nodding like excited labradors!! And what is rule no 1 of Marathon running? Never try anything new on race day!

This proved to be my first mistake, as after picking up my first replacement drink bottle at 10 miles,it was undrinkable!! This resulted in 10 more miles in 80 degree heat with no liquid, which in turn resulted in a nightmare! Luckily Sophs and Mum came to the rescue with Lucozade and water and I managed to kick the last 6 miles home for a time of 4 hrs 47 mins and the 4th person home.

This time may seem slow and when you break it down it certainly is not quick. But 9 more marathons to go, continuous hills around what seems like every corner, this is going to be more than respectable.


Day 2
Legs feel fine and new strategy to be adopted. the run, walk the hills approach!! This is no ordinary marathon track, and if we are to get around 10 it needs respect and some serious planning!! Ray, my celtic brethren from Ireland and the legendary organiser of the Connemara Marathon; ran yesterday with a the same strategy with some amazing results, so today i decided to team up with him and Malcolm. Malcolm is from New Zealand, lives in Canada but has Scottish routes, which makes the Celtic triangle complete! And he runs with food which is highly attractive to a welshman!

At mile 12 we had already planned a few beers on day 5, should we make it. For here you have three Celts that have now gone without Alcohol for 3 entire days!

Unbelievably it was hotter today and getting hotter tomorrow, but we cruised through the run, stopped for a cup of tea at 20 miles and I still finished a minute quicker than yesterday in 4 hrs 46 minutes!! So guess what the strategy will be tomorrow and the next day and yes you guessed it for the rest of the week!

When running with guys that run solidly for 24 hrs, have done the comrades, Run over 100 miles in one go, pushed over 80 marathons in a year, you listen and learn. And i am happy to say that today I found a style of running that may be the saving of this challenge. Because its a long way, a very long way.
 
day-5.jpg



7 down and 3 to go!

So first things first, apologies for the delay in updating the blog. Time runs into itself when you are here, and the day goes something like this:

6.30 wake, shower and breakfast
7.30 Intense physio with Magic Amy and John, followed by more intense strapping!
9.30 Start
2.15 ish back at brathay!
2.30 lunch
3.15 Ice legs in river or tubs
4pm Physio
6pm dinner
7pm drinks bottles and iceing
8pm bed!!

And it goes really quickly!! And i have always been pretty useless at admin!

So where are we? 7 marathons in 7 days completed, Steve is pretty set to break the world record time set last year and it seeems that some are getting stronger!!

Ray, sorry, "Marathon Ray o'Connor" ran an all time PB today with a 3hr 26min run around the Lake today! Followed closely by Steve and George around the 3.30 mark.

I on the other hand am currently blessing the gods of Windermere on a daily basis each and every time I cross that finish line! Day 4 I go Achiles tendonitis, and apart from being a great scrabble score, it generally does not help in any occassion especially running a further 6 marathons!

But Physio, ultra sound, strapping, ice and many many pain killers are getting me around at the moment. Weirdly faster than day 1!

This is an amazing experience for us all, but when you get an injury, doubt begins to creep into your mind. Its not the pain, but the chance of failure that really hurts, so every day I make the start line is really a blessing, although tonight I can feel the other achilles starting to niggle!! So its praying now I can get through tomorrow and into the weekend!

Sophie and the team are all up tomorrow, so I am breaking the runs down now. Friday run and see everyone, Saturday is the last time we all run together on our own; and Sunday, well that will be adrenalin, lot more pain killers and the chance to become the first Welsh person to cover this distance, be one of the first 15 to cover the distance in the world, but at the same time raise money for a great cause.

Here's to 15 hours of more pain and the hope that Sunday will see 10 runners cross that line safely, but most definately emotionally!
Click to expand...

He's doing an average of roughly 4 hours 40 per marathon.

Over £7,600 now raised :D
Donate Here
Marathon Times So Far

Diaries
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
 
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