Resident Blog - Darren's marathon

We’d love to say a huge congratulations to Lightmoor Village resident Darren Macleod, who has recently completed the Manchester marathon. We caught up Darren recently for an update of how he got on:

Darren, how long have you been running?

For about the past ten years, I’m 47 now, so I found it a great way to keep fit both physically and mentally.

Why did you decide to enter the Manchester marathon?

I ran my first marathon in Chester in 2021 and was meant to run it again in Oct 2022 but our daughter decided to arrive on the day I was meant to be running! I decided to look for another marathon to try, I’d love to run the London Marathon and have entered a few times for a while now but had no success so far, so I looked for another option and found Manchester.  Once I’d registered, my wife and I heard about a friend’s three year old son who received an awful diagnosis at the beginning of the year and they needed help to raise funds so he can get specialist medical treatment in America, so I made the decision to help them by asking people to sponsor me to do the marathon.

How did you find the experience of running the marathon?

I had been training hard but having a new baby added a new dimension to it and the sleepless nights certainly didn’t help. On the day the atmosphere was amazing with the support from the crowds, which definitely helped me along. Unfortunately at the 23^rd mile mark, I suffered an injury to my knee, which meant I had to walk the final three miles. There were moments I didn’t think I’d be able to complete it as I was really struggling but the fact I was raising funds for Rory kept me going.

What was the best/worst part of running the marathon?

The best part was the support from the crowd and my family/friends who sponsored me. The worse was getting the injury and struggling the last three miles.

How did you feel afterwards?

I was relieved I completed it but also immensely proud that I had accomplished what I had aimed for in completing and raising money.

Are you planning on doing any more?

I have signed up to complete the Chester triple again this year. This involves a 10k, half marathon and full marathon over the year. I did the 10k in March and have the half marathon in May then the full marathon in October. This is what I had signed up to do last year but only managed the 10k and half due to my daughter being born on the day of the full marathon. I also have the Birmingham half at the end of April and I have signed up to do Manchester again next year so I can try and complete it without the injury.

Further details about three year old Rory and the battle he’s facing can be found below. If you’d like to support Rory, Darren’s fundraising page is still open at https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/mac-of-all-trades?utm_term=jegapp9Ja

Link to Raise For Rory Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091211164588

Link to Rory’s story: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0QzuoFZua1eUxBXwLVrDTWvSeR4vqaBh5z4R8nX8pfCvG1uxzPhRmU9wMsFifTn3El&id=100091211164588

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