How not to do it!

The Project 65 blog editor thought he'd have his say...

Well, people, I think you are all completely bonkers.

Don't get me wrong, as an ex-Army officer myself, I understand and sympathise with the cause. God, I even did the FLM last year for one of the military charities and it practically killed me. Also note that I say 'did' not 'ran' - there is a reason for this.

It's not surprising given I did all my training on the dance floors of south-west London, showed up at the start having stuffed a kebab down between tube stop and line, still half-cut having not been to bed due to one of said dance-floors, and with the attitude of, 'How hard can it be for God's sake!? I am in the Army after all!! This is nothing in comparision to Sandhurst!!'

Six hours and twenty-fours minutes later, with burst blisters on both feet, feeling like I'd been kneecapped, bleeding nipples (and had been from about Mile 20), a raging thirst and possibly the worst hangover I'd ever known, I crossed the finish line in The Mall. I only narrow beat the street sweeper. Sandhurst didn't even register on the scale of pain.

So, now you've had the official method of long distance running (see Matt Furber below), I thought I give the antithesis... Let the above story, whilst vaguely amusing now in hindsight but not remotely at the time, be a sanguine lesson in how not to do marathon/ultra-marathon running!

However, I applaud you all tremendously for your efforts, big and small, and the committment that you will undoubtedly need to get round the 65 miles. I proved that you can just about get away with it for 26 miles, but there is no hiding in 65.

Collectively you have raised already a staggering amount, produced an unprecedented, and I would go as far as to say historic, collaboration between six military charities which normally are jockeying and vying for position, produced the best story of which I can possibly think to take to the papers to persuade the them to write about us, and given me some huge laughs with the entries to this blog..!

All I can say is please keep up the phenomenal work, keep pushing forward volunteers to Danny, and keep sending me press releases that I can correct for you and help with the publicity. Tell everyone you know about the Facebook group, this blog, the run and tell everyone to pass it on. Don't be shy in coming forward - you are all doing something amazing! Come to Woburn so that I can put faces to the names, and have a beer once you have finished your rather brief training run.

Above all though - keep banging out those miles! And that is from a seasoned marathon runner. Not.

Cheers

Ed