New Dawn Support Worker completes his first London Marathon!
A massive congratulations to Rohel, who completed his first London Marathon for MACs charity who support children born without eyes or with underdeveloped eyes.
Rohel, who is a support worker and driver for New Dawn is deaf, he has been wanting to challenge himself for many years and finally got his place in the London Marathon after years of applying. Below he shares his experience.
My ambition
Over the past few years I have been wanting to run in the London Marathon but unfortunately I have been unable to do so, one thing or another always came up and prevented me from taking part.
I enjoy running, keeping fit and active. I have taken parts in many different sporting events/activities but this is by far the most challenging event.
I take pleasure in aiming for something and working towards it, I feel a sense of accomplishment when I compete in such events. The atmosphere is colourful and vibrate and fills me up with great energy.
My training
In April/May 2022, I received confirmation of entry to London Marathon 2022. I could not believe it, I was so happy with joy and excitement running through me. I shared this with all my families and friends.
I have been building up for this marathon for a long time, challenging myself day to day and increasing my goals and targets in order to enhance my stamina and endurance.
Once I begum to increase my stamina, I started to push myself even further by training in different weather conditions and going out twice a day. I would wake up early in the morning and go for a run and when I returned back from work, I would go for a run. I run in cold weather in March and immense hot weather in July. I quickly saw the benefits of the method of training, my breathing was more controlled and my ability to sustain prolonged physical and mental effort.
In order to have a good training programme, I knew I have to sacrifice a lot of things, like family time, delicious food and even come out of my comfort zone. For me 50% was training, 25% was dieting and 25% was resting. I must admit I struggled with dieting the most.
My Marathon
On the day, I woke up early and was super excited to see my family members were ready roar me on. They had made banners and posters for me and told me where they will be standing (on the route).When I got to the starting point, I was overwhelmed by seeing the amount of people participating. I begum to get very nervous and I could feel my heart pounding, my breathing got deep and shallow as I tried to focus and compose myself.
At around 10.30am, I begum my race and went comfortably though 10miles. I saw my friends and family in 4 different places and this kept me going. Towards the later stages of the race, I begum to get craps on my legs and calf’s. My legs started to feel stiff and my hamstring felt tight. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me, I slowed down and tried to keep going to meet my target time of 4hrs.
At one point I stopped and stretched my legs, this only helped me to go a bit further but not enough to keep to my desired pace. My heart was feeling heavy with disappointment now and this affected my running ability. I could feel myself drowning in my thoughts, I didn’t want to give up. Eventually, I reached the finishing line at 5hrs and 30mins. This was the most difficult event I have competed and the urge to compete in it again was immediate to me at the end of the race.
I have accomplished a massive milestones in my life by completing this event. I enjoyed the whole experience and atmosphere. It was an amazing event.
Once again, thank you to everyone for supporting me and for all your donations. I will like to take part in next year’s London Marathon 2023 and hopefully be able to run for The Tower Project.