Hey, thank you for looking at my page. I'm running the London Marathon (again) and I'm raising money for St Mark's Hospital Foundation (again), the hospital that operated on me and nursed me back to health. No, I don't really understand how I got to be here again!

My goals for 2018 are:

not to poop myself
finish in a more respectable time. I'd love to take a whole hour off of my 2015 time and finish in 3hrs 53mins but I think 4hrs 23 mins is more realistic.
Moonwalk around Cutty Sark. (I'll need to learn to moonwalk first)
Finish with enough thoughts in my brain so that I can work out how to unwrap the foil blanket they give you. I still have the one from 2015. Still folded. It shouldn't be hard but after 26.22 miles, I couldn't work it out.
not to make my hernia worse.
Get through the training without injuring myself. In March 2015 I was described as biomechanically unfit to run a marathon by a qualified Physiotherapist. But she helped me patch my knees up and get round regardless.
raise £6,882. I raised £6,881 in 2013 so this would mean £1 more! Woop woop.

Let me explain. On 9th October 2013 (I don't forget that date) I had major organ surgery. It was 100% preventative, to stop me getting terminal cancer in my 60s. I had a total colectomy and an ileo-rectal anastamosis. In simple terms, they took out my large intestine and joined up the end of the small intestine to the end of my rectum. Simples. ;-)

I have 1.5m less internal tubing than you. I can lead a very normal* life, at least, it's normal to me. But with 6 foot less storage I have to visit the toilet once or twice more per day than you do. Also, the colon helps separate waste water from waste solids. I can't do that so when I do go, it has more water in it.

Don't read this bit if you're eating... If you know the Bristol Stool Scale, I'm pretty much a 6 all the time but with 7s thrown in and the occasional 5. Oh how I celebrate.

Another point to note is that without my colon I can no longer process salt so effectively. I have to add salt to my diet. If I don't, I get massively lethargic.

All of this proves problematic when running. Needing the toilet often and lethargy. Great. Plus running is known for increasing the speed of your digestion so you don't want to know how it makes me feel.

In 2015 it was all about getting round, I had close friends trying to talk me out of it. I was only 18months post surgery and I'd lost 18/19kg in the month straight after my surgery. They were worried for me. So I only had one goal, to get round, although my secondary goals were under 5 hours if possible and not to poop myself on the way. I got lucky on all counts and I ran/walked it in 4hrs 53mins 49secs. Celebratory photo above.

I had a couple of regrets so I'd always wanted a second chance. The stretch around Cutty Sark is amazing. SO MANY PEOPLE. I wanted to give them something back for their cheers. I want to moonwalk that section. Plus I'd always fancied the challenge of trying to run it in under 4hrs.

Thanks for reading. You can keep upto date with my training diary and look at photos of my chicken legs on

Blue 'uns

Brian

*post surgery, I have run/walked the London Marathon in 2015 and cycled 100miles in 2013, I qualified as a skydiving instructor in 2015 and I set two skydiving World Records too, I'm on page 129 of the current Guinness Book of World Records. It's 'normal' to me. :-)

Check out my training updates for some funny photos of my chicken legs.

Grand Union Half Marathon - Mid-race video