Ben McPartland

May 19th

“From the moment I came through the doors I felt an atmosphere and a vibe here, from the nurses all the way through to the kitchen staff. The hospice has that homely feeling. I felt like I was joining an exclusive club.”

Jill Brittain from Highgate said these words to me just a few weeks before she lost her long battle with cancer in early 2007.

She was talking about the unique atmosphere of the Marie Curie Hospice in Lyndhurst Gardens, where she received extraordinary care to help her through those torturous and painful final weeks before her death.

Like Jill, hundreds of cancer sufferers rely on the superb care offered by staff at the Hampstead hospice every year. Some go there in their final days, others can book themselves in for a week or two to get some much needed support and rest as they battle the disease.

Jill summed up the help victims like her receive when she said: “The care is unbelievable. It’s not just medical care but emotional care as well. You can ring a nurse for help without feeling that you are a nuisance.

“I’m sure there are people who don’t want to accept that they are dying but I would be perfectly happy to die here.”

The Marie Curie Hospice and its incredible staff rely on the help of charitable donations and fundraising events. Hence, the fact that myself and my colleague Katie are attempting to run the marathon.

Please sponsor us and ensure that the work done at the Hampstead Hospice can continue.

March 27th

When I first thought about training for the marathon I pictured all those famous long distance runners like Haile Gabri Selassie, Rosa Mota and (arguably the greatest of them all) Forest Gump.

And after the gruelling Hastings Half Marathon left my legs in bits it is Gump who I feel closest too. Not the one who ran across America for fun but the young Gump – with the mangled legs shackled by his supportive leg braces.

After 13.1 miles going up and down around the South Coast (where were the flat bits, race organisers?) I could have done with some leg callipers but instead I decided it was time to bite the bullet and call in a sports magician or a physio as they are more commonly known.

I took my shin splints, tight hamstrings and aching knees off to Kentish Town Physiotherapy to get a 45-minute going over from Chris Myers.

It’s a busy time of year for Mr Myers and the other qualified physios who are based at the LA Fitness gym on Highgate Road.

I joined the annual conveyor belt of hopeful marathon runners popping in to get patched up and sent back out on the roads.

First up on the treatment table were the sore shins, the curse that affects most long distance runners.

“Shin splints, which is the term most people use for the injury, is one of the most common we have to deal with along with problems with the Achilles and something called Iliotibial Band Friction Syndrome, which effects the outside of the knee,” said Chris.

“There’s many things you can do to help with shin splints like soft tissue work or stretches, but the key thing with shin splints is that they are normally the result of a different primary problem like poor foot posture.”

Walking up the escalator at Kentish Town Tube had been an ordeal in itself but after a short and thorough massage on the calves I felt ready to run again. I’ll sort the foot posture out after April 13.

But going to a physio is not just about massages. Some of the best help I was given was advice on how to stretch properly and warm up before a run.

Chris said: “For us it is more about helping these people get around the course. We want to help them fulfil that goal. If they can get round the rewards at the end are so great for them.”

I should have called on the help of a physio weeks ago and I recommend a visit to all marathon runners, whether you are struggling or not.

To make an appointment call Kentish Town Physiotherapy on 020 7482 3875 or visit www.kentishtownphysio.co.uk.

March 6th

Scooby Doo, Dumbo the Elephant, Mr Tickle, Mr Bump and an eight foot Giraffe all managed to cross the finishing line of the London Marathon last year.
I, like everyone else, have stood there by the side of the road wondering what possesses these people not only to enter the race in the first place but to then decide to do it disguised as a big furry animal.
Are they not satisfied with just completing the bleedin thing? Are they looking for a bigger challenge? Is it showing off? Or are these people just uneasy on the eye and need a comic way of covering up a big hairy facial mole or varicose veins?
Anyhow, after doing the Watford half marathon I think I know now why they do it.
Before the race on February 3 Watford Town Hall reeked. The Deep Heat and the Vaseline were flowing. There were serious athletes everywhere, all dressed up in their running club’s colours rubbing themselves up all over the place and stretching muscles I don’t even have. Their warm ups looked more tiring than one of my training runs.
I have got nothing against these serious runners, they are just scary company to keep when you are only worried about getting across the finish line and they are talking about personal bests or ‘PBs’ as they say.
I think Scooby and Scrappy Doo are a rejection of this world of serious running and I am now thinking of going down the fancy dress route myself.
But if I do I will give myself a major training headache. I can’t go to the gym dressed as Yogi Bear. Can you imagine Yogi walking past security at the gym going off to pound the treadmill next to Jude Law and Liam Gallagher? (They use the same gym)
I can’t follow my normal run around Hampstead Heath dressed as Zippy from Rainbow. (Maybe George wouldn’t go down too badly in some parts).
I would have to consign myself to training in the middle of the night in my own living room.
I also want to know where these other characters do their training. They can’t just follow a normal schedule like everyone else and then wake up on the morning of the marathon and get into costume. I’m not having that. There must be some secret club out there in the darker parts of London, maybe underneath a railway arch, where they all meet up to exercise.

February 14th

I think my stomach wall came off last weekend five miles into my long Sunday run.
When the nice guy at Covent Garden’s Marathon shop, where I bought my super duper, air cushioned, specially moulded trainers, said this would happen I just thought “nah, give over, my stomach doesn’t have a detachable wall in it, you weirdo.”
But I think it does, or at least it did. Halfway down Highgate Hill on Sunday my stomach, which I have treated so well over the years, began to get a bit moody. And by the time I reached the bottom of the hill it was having an all out tantrum, throwing all its toys and last night’s hot curry (Chicken Pathia, from Garam Massala on Brecknock Road, very tasty) out of the pram.
All I’ll say is that I had to make a detour home to calm it down before I could run again (as opposed to simply ‘doing a Paula Radcliffe’ at the side of the road…).
Some runners like to follow meticulously scheduled training plans, with carefully planned runs over various distances, a balanced diet, daily stretches, massages, physiotherapy and advice from a personal life coach. They are the wise ones and they are the ones who will finish the run on April 13 with a pristine stomach lining.
I, however, got a bit sick of my mundane training programme and decided to leave my colleague Katie Davies to pound the treadmills and the roads around Hampstead by herself and took myself off up to the French Alps for a high-altitude work out.
The ski resort of Meribel, which was swarming with rosy-cheeked English sporty types like a Tenerife for posh healthy people, was a perfect backdrop.
I wanted to be like Rocky, in Rocky IV, when he is training in Siberia as he prepares to fight the big, bad communist Ivan Drago in Moscow. While Drago was wired up to hi-tech machines and computers and being given a regular dose of steroids (probably like Katie Davies back home) I, like Stallone, was going to be out on the slopes, lifting logs, clearing snow drifts and pulling sleds loaded with fat kids up the pistes.
Except I did none of that. I spent the week eating cheese, drinking vin chaud and tumbling down mountains. Great time though. Five weeks to go.

January 31st

“Eat five a day, one of each colour,” is the great advice my friends-***-health experts have been giving me over the past few weeks.

When I was a lad it used to be enough to have an apple a day to keep the doctor away, but now they want me to have five pieces of fruit and veg a day. Where am I going to find the time?

I preferred the five curries a week rule, agreed between my stomach and my taste buds when I was 18.

So in a carefully thought-out plan to meet the quota of modern eating habits my fitness trainer and nutritionist have agreed for me to have one vegetable curry a day followed by a slice of orange.

Three weeks into training and apart from adjusting to the new food regime it’s been a struggle on the road as well.

My legs are not what they used to be.

Painful shin splints and sore knees have kept me from doing too much running, which is a problem because that is what doing the marathon is really about. I have been told I have to rest but my head tells me I should be running. It’s turmoil. Is there anyone out there who can help?

Mr and Mrs Ibuprofen are getting sick of me calling on them all the time.

If I don’t find a solution before March I am just going to buy a pair of those kids’ trainers with wheels in them. With all the crowds I am sure no one will notice on the day.

The problem of not being able to run too far could become clear on Sunday when I take my first big stride towards the big day on April 13.

The Watford Half Marathon could be make or break for me. I better have an apple over the next few days.

January 24th

ALL I have to do to complete the Flora London Marathon and get my hands on a medal is to put one foot in front of the other about 55,000 times in a row.

Psychologically I prefer to think about it that way, rather than ponder the 26.1 miles. Why would anyone want to run that distance? It’s not healthy, natural, or clever.

But apparently it has its origins in ancient Greek history so everyone has to do it.

There are a few different myths and legends about the origin of the Marathon. One of them says a guy called Phidippides ran the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens in 500BC to announce a victory for the Grecian army against the Persians. But ominously as soon as he delivered the news he dropped dead from exhaustion.

Maybe that explains why running a marathon always seems to be included in those lists of things people must do before they die.

Phidippides was apparently the best runner in Athens at the time so it doesn’t bode well for me and Katie who are not even rated highly at the Ham&High.

‘Doing the Marathon is a big commitment’, people keep telling me. But just like putting off the commitment of going out with a girl until after a Valentine’s Day I agreed with my body to put off my devotion to running until after the gluttonous and booze fuelled festive period.

Well I guess that’s over now so the putting one foot in front of the other training begins in earnest.

In the next few weeks readers should be able to spot me jogging up and down the slopes of Highgate and Hampstead, dashing up the High Streets of Camden and Kentish Town, sprinting through the Heath at night or pounding the treadmill in the gym at the Marriott hotel in Swiss Cottage.

If I make it to the finish line on Sunday April 13 I will do so 10 days before I celebrate my 30th birthday. It feels like this is the best chance I have of doing it before the mid life crisis and depression set in.

But the main motivation is the opportunity to raise money for a great cause. I have seen at first hand the incredible work done by the staff at the Marie Curie hospice in Hampstead and I feel the least I can do is take 55,000 tired strides to raise cash to help cancer sufferers.