Marathon Woman

In May this year, I will be attempting to run 10 marathons in 10 days around Lake Windermere for the Brathay Trust, joined on Day 10 by 1,000 other runners in the Windermere marathon. 15 of us will be running the event which follows an official measured marathon course of 26.2 miles from Ambleside, through the stunning scenery of the Lake District past Hawkshead, Newby Bridge, Bowness and Windermere, keeping the UK’s largest lake on our left and some of its finest hills on our right. Only 27 people have completed the challenge before, and I will be the youngest female at 28 to make the attempt. It certainly isn’t a sport just for those male greyhounds in split shorts you see at the local running club – Sir Christopher Ball who founded the event in 2004 was 70 when he ran it, and runners’ ages this year range from 24 to 54.

I’m running the event to raise funds for the Brathay Trust. Brathay is based near Ambleside in the Lake District and works with young people across the UK. It especially aims to develop those who are at risk of falling out of mainstream society and becoming part of the problem commonly described as antisocial behaviour. By raising their aspirations and developing positive attitudes and behaviours, the young people they help are enabled to move onto successful education, training and employment. Brathay’s work develops successful, confident and responsible young people who are empowered to make a positive contribution to society.

When people hear what I’m planning to do, most think I’m mad, with only a few agreeing with me that it’s an exciting new challenge. It tends to be the runners who can appreciate just how hard 10 marathons in 10 days is going to be, especially if you’ve suffered the pain that comes in the days after your first marathon. There were a few reasons I decided to apply for selection to the 10 in 10: after about a dozen marathons, my recovery had improved to cope with doubles pretty comfortably, that is, two marathons on consecutive days. Realising you can get out of bed the morning after a marathon and go out for another was a big leap – sure, the first few miles are stiff and sore but gradually you loosen up and the endorphins kick in and you feel like you’re invincible. I wanted to see how far I could push myself and my recovery and this seemed like an appropriate next step.

Most people, when they’ve mastered the marathon distance, graduate to ultras. I’ve run a handful of shorter ultras up to 40 miles, but they are mostly on trail in the UK and I’m very much a road runner. I like the feeling of smooth firm tarmac under your feet, the way you can get into a rhythm of your legs turning over and over and over, the ground almost feeling like it’s rolling beneath your feet. On trail, I’m reduced to a shuffling old lady, so aware of where every footstep is planted that the seconds become minutes and the minutes become hours and I’m testing my mental endurance more than my physical reserves. I run because I like to run, so 10 marathons in 10 days, on a UKA recognised, measured road marathon course, is the perfect opportunity to test how far my body will go.

I’ve never had a running background, doing as little PE at school as I could get away with. I entered my first marathon, Paris 2003, only when I could manage 20 minutes on the treadmill in one go 6 months before the event, and I really didn’t appreciate how hard it was going to be. It was 4 years before I ran my next marathon and that was because I’d finally got a place in London 2007 and had always wanted to have run it. That’s “have run it”, not actually run it! I finished London in 6 meagre seconds over 5 hours so of course I had to beat that, and I did, smashing my PB by 40 minutes in October that year.

Naomi Prasad