#MotivateAMate A month to go for Annette and Sally

Read the latest from our fantastic Motivate a mate Duo Annette and Sally. 

It feels like we’ve been training forever but now all of a sudden there’s just 4 weeks left until we run the Yorkshire Marathon! Our training plan has worked really well, and we’ve pretty much stuck to the 4 runs a week schedule, only missing a couple when life got a bit too busy over the summer holidays or to rest a slight injury. When we started it, neither of us had run further than a half marathon before, and the prospect of doing 18, 19, 20 mile long runs just seemed impossible. Even planning a run of that distance was a challenge, making sure there was a toilet stop, or somewhere to buy more water, and preferably not too many hills! But now here we are, with just one more long run of 20 miles left to do before we start our 3 week taper. We were so scared of running such long distances, but now we quite enjoy them! We run slow and steady, with lots of chatting and snacks along the way (jelly babies, green smoothies and mini Cheddars are the current favourites), and it’s amazing how quickly the time passes and we just don’t notice how far we’ve run. Fingers crossed the actual marathon will feel like that too, although we suspect it won’t!

We’re feeling a whole range of emotions right now. We feel so proud that we’ve stuck to the training and achieved so much already. There’s been long runs, short runs, flat runs, hilly runs, wet runs, heatwave runs, races, PBs, parkruns, chatty runs, solo runs, brilliant runs and disastrous runs, and we’ve learnt so much along the way. Since we started the plan back in June we’ve run over 350 miles each, lost count of how many cakes we’ve eaten, and earnt some nice race medals (including PBs at the Leeds Half Marathon and York 10K!) We’ve also raised £435 so far for our amazing charity Zarach, who provide beds, food, school uniform, and other basics for children living in poverty in Leeds. As primary school teachers, it’s a cause very close to our hearts.

We’re really tired now, with all sorts of aches and pains, and in a way it’ll be nice when it’s all over and we can have a rest. But at the same time we don’t want it to be over because it’s been such an amazing experience. We’ll never be able to say again “We’re training for our first marathon!” We’ve loved running together and sharing the whole experience, and we’re starting to feel excited as well as nervous about Marathon Day. Our long runs have been going well and we’ve started to believe that we might just be able to do it, maybe! But we’re determined to finish it, even if we have to crawl over the finish line! We’ve had fantastic support from our friends and family, and from Run For All, and we hope we can make them all proud on the day.

To read more about Sally and Annette's marathon journey head to their blog

https://www.facebook.com/Annette-Sallys-Marathon-Journey-running-for-cake-and-bling-108774334771458

Or why not show them your support and visit their Justgiving page below