On Sunday I met with the RNLI in New Brighton again. This time I Was photographing their lifeboat training and meeting the guys to do some portraits. Afterwards I ran 16 miles.

The team at New Brighton are a fun bunch of hardworking people. The atmosphere at the station was very lighthearted but you know that they’re there to train to save lives. While the river was incredibly calm on Sunday, they train for all conditions. I was told that quite often they don’t know what they’re going out to until they’re in the water. They’ll get a page, race down and be out into the water asap. They train to save lives. They all volunteer too.

After the shoot I suited up and ran 16 miles. My current pace on long runs is around 12:15-20 minutes per mile. It’s slow and if I did that pace for the marathon it would take me around 5hrs 30 minutes to complete. That’s an awfully long time to be running. What I’ve come to realise is that I’m just not fit enough to run a marathon. I was for the half marathon, just about. I did a solid pace of 10 mins per mile and I was happy with that. It’s a pace I knew I could train and improve on. The marathon though, it’s massively different and just incredibly hard going. At the moment I run a half marathon then walk a bit, run a mile, walk a bit, run a mile till I’m done. I just can’t keep it up.

When I get home my muscles are very tired and sore. It hurts to walk and after a while I throw up a few times. The fun that I got from running just isn’t there at the moment. I hope it will return when I see the finish line though.

I’m having to fight past the pain in my legs and the mental barriers holding me back. When I finish a run it’s very hard to not throw in the towel. My body hurts. Why am I doing this? It’s horrible. Meeting the RNLI team gives me a reason to keep going. I need to raise over £1,000 to make this agony worthwhile. Please donate via Just Giving. The money raised will specifically go to help the New Brighton station. Anyone who lives round here will be able to know that they’ve made a difference to a local life saving team.