Kevin had the idea of raising money for a charity centred around homelessness due to a connection he had with a guy called John Dwyer. As a youngster, Kevin became familiar with John as he would run past him on his daily run. Late one night, following an argument with his Dad, when he was just 20, Kevin sat down with John Dwyer for a chat and learned about his story. ‘Go back home to your Dad’, Dwyer advised ‘being homeless is no fun’. Kevin took the advice but never forgot the experience. Last year John Dwyer passed away having lived under the M4 flyover for over 36 years. Upon learning this, Kevin came up with this challenge as a way of honouring the bloke with who he spent that evening with. His idea was to run or walk to every single London Underground station – and then, on the final day run the London Marathon. He then found the Running Charity who use running as a way of tackling mental and physical wellbeing in young homeless people. It seemed like a perfect match.

While Kevin is an experienced marathon runner, he had never faced anything like this. So, he called in Steve Ingham who is steeped in high performance having trained some of Britain’s best athletes over the years. Steve and Kevin together worked on a plan to deal with both the physical and mental challenges that the Metro Marathon Challenge would entail. Kevin is a psychologist and author and had been working with GB rower, John Collins, for the past four years helping John to develop his mental resilience and toughness. They were aiming for gold in Tokyo. However, John and his partner Graham had finished a disappointing fourth in the final of the double skulls – just missing out on a medal. Kevin phoned John following the race in Tokyo and sensed the depth of the disappointment. “I wonder” thought Kevin, “would John be up for joining him on my challenge – it could be just what he needed.”

The day John returned from the Olympics he was faced with a mountain of chores to do. He and his partner Karen (also an athlete, also finished fourth in her event) had got back from Tokyo and were greeted by the site of a very messy house and nowhere to unload their six bags of kit. They dedicated the next day to just being able to unpack their bags. That evening, feeling exhausted John finally sat down having had a tidy up. Then it hit him. “What do I do now?” He felt a sudden sense of aimlessness. It an all too common, and hard to deal with feeling for athletes post games.  

At that moment his phone lit up with a message from Kevin, “Check your emails” it said. John opened a message that detailed the Metro Marathon Challenge. Kevin had mentioned this before, but John had paid little attention. At the bottom of the email, it said: “Do you fancy it?”.

John didn’t really think about what he was letting himself in for, he just knew that he needed to find himself something to do and fast. Kevin remembers his text being returned, almost instantly, with “Great idea, I’m in”.  Kevin and John’s Metro Marathon Challenge had begun.

Kevin had never run a marathon a day for 15 days and John had never run more than 12km in his life. Now, they both had to contemplate the challenge of covering as much as 31 miles (50km) in a day at some points. And then the 26.2 miles of the London Marathon! So, they set about finding out what they would need to do to prepare themselves for such a massive challenge.  Kevin was being trained by Steve, while John turned to his coaches in British Rowing many of whom were keen runners.

For the two weeks that John and Kevin are navigating the challenge, they will be sleeping out in tents. This will intensify the challenge for them as if they can’t rest properly, like a lot of homeless people can’t, then recovering to manage another day of the challenge will prove more and more difficult. The Running Charity, along with Jon Sampson will be on hand to help them with logistics.

Let’s all wish them luck and give them a cheer if you see them on their way. And of course, let’s help Kevin and John raise as many funds for people experiencing homelessness as possible by donating to the Running Charity via their Just Giving page

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/metromarathonchallenge