St Albans man’s marathon task

St Albans businessman David Busbridge knew he was cutting it fine when he signed up for the London Marathon – giving himself just six weeks of intensive training before the event.

David, 43, considers himself reasonably fit after successfully running in the St Albans Half Marathon last year, but never planned on facing a bigger challenge until a friend persuaded him otherwise.

“I was talking about how the runners in the London Marathon always seem to raise money for the larger charities, and somewhat flippantly I said I’d run it if could find a smaller charity to support. My friend Anura Nanayakkara said he knew of a spare place in the Marathon to run for the London Community Foundation.

“I Googled the Foundation and discovered it’s a unique, catalyst organisation that helps some of the most marginalised and vulnerable people in London. They work with philanthropists from the private and public sector, providing funding for London organisations and individuals who otherwise lack support. In the last financial year, they gave out over 750 grants totalling £4.1 million, helping over 130,000 people and managing 120 funds.”

It’s very rare for someone to land a place in the London Marathon this close to the event as it is also one of the most competitive and acclaimed marathons in the world. Most of the runners spend at least a year in training, so it’s lucky for David that he is a keen martial artist and had already been working with his martial arts club ATEA in Shenley for a year, coupled with running four to five miles most weekends, but he still has a long way to go before the event on April 13.

He is currently deep in training and on a very restricted healthy diet with the occasional weekend treat. He has embraced the elements and runs daily in the wind and the rain, gradually increasing the mileage towards the end of the week.

He explained: “My theory was that once you’re wet… you can’t really get any wetter! I’m aiming to raise £1,000 for the London Community Foundation which is such a great and fairly unknown cause.”

David, who lives in St Albans with his wife Katherine and two children Jacob, 14, and four-year-old Emily, also works in the local community as a senior designer and business development manager at theAppStudio360.

To support his marathon effort visit http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/David_Busbridge