A Birchington runner takes on his fourth London Marathon today – except this year he will be running the 26.2 mile route in Thanet.
Andy Icke starts from his home in Birchington at 10.30am today (October 4) and will continue on the run, raising funds for the NHS. He will take a route along the main Margate stretch, up to Palm Bay, then to Reculver and finally finishing in Minnis Bay.
Andy hopes to raise £4,000 for NHS Charities.
On his fundraising page he says: “I am not a natural runner or fitness guru, but for some insane reason in 2017 I decided to do my first marathon, I trained hard and really loved the experience on the day. When it was over I literally couldn’t walk and i vowed never to do it again.
“The next year I suddenly found myself doing it again! I realised that regardless of the pain, I really liked the challenge physically and the idea that I was working hard to raise money for the charity I supported. I have since run 2017, 2018, 2019 and raised over £7,000.
“Last year really was going to be my last one then I realised it’s the 40th anniversary this year and I didn’t want to miss out on that. I decided to Run for Mind as this was a charity that I hadn’t supported previously however with the official usual race postponed I get to run the next official large gathering London race choosing the NHS Charities organisation for obvious reasons. They really are troopers and it’s important we support out NHS as they support us.”
Around 45,000 people will run or walk the 40th London Marathon along their own 26.2-mile route after the usual event in April was postponed and the continuing pandemic means the race has now gone ‘virtual.’
