“Have you done a marathon?”
Since my total laryngectomy in February 2022, I have taken on a few challenges that most regular airway folk would call extreme — and that, for a lary, sit somewhere between brave and completely insane. Four Hyrox races. The ATHX Games with a fellow lary. Two London to Brighton off-road MTB rides. An Xterra Duathlon. The X-tron Live virtual fitness event, all the way through to the Finals.
But whenever I get talking to people about the events, the training, the kit — eventually, the same question pops up:
“Have you done a marathon?”
I’d usually laugh and say, “Hell no. I might be quite mad, but I’m not marathon-running mad.”
Even before I became a lary, the idea of running 26.2 miles seemed ludicrous. Post-op, the furthest I’d ever run was about 10 to 12K. So 42K? That belonged to other people.
Signing up anyway
And yet, in 2024, completely out of the blue, I put my name in the ballot for the 2025 TCS London Marathon. No luck. I tried again in 2025 for the 2026 race. No luck again.
So I started looking around for alternatives — and that’s when I came across the Mavericks Brighton Trail Marathon. A first-of-its-kind event, off-road, over the South Downs. I’ve always loved trail running, and the thinking went something like: “why do a simple marathon when you can do a much harder one?”
I signed up, bought a pair of trail shoes and some warm winter kit, and started a 21-week training plan: two to three runs a week, weekly distance creeping up towards marathon distance, around 700K total by race day.
The work no one sees
Anyone who remembers the start of 2026 will remember it was wet. I ran in mud. I ran in rain. I ran, on more than one occasion, in snow. It was a lot. But I’d started something, so I pushed on.
People talk about a marathon as though the race is the hard bit. It is not. The race is just the finish line. The real work is the early mornings in the cold, the aches, the dodgy knee, the trial-and-error of gear, fuel, pace and effort. And as a laryngectomy, there is a whole extra layer: how to keep clean on the go, what supplies to carry, which HMEs to use, which baseplates hold up over hours of sweat — all that good stuff.
By mid-February, the runs were getting long. I was about to go further than I’d ever run in my life, so I decided my first ever half marathon should be on the actual race route — a recce of the ground and the course. 21K, 2 hours 25 minutes. Solid groundwork for a hopeful sub-5-hour marathon.
From there the distances kept climbing. 25K. 28K. 30K. Then a 32K long run a few weeks before race day — the longest run of the plan. Distances that, a year earlier, would have sounded ridiculous now felt routine.
Race day: 12 April
By April, the rain was a memory. I’d tweaked my setup, sorted my breathing, and the donations had come in. Nervous? Yes. I still hadn’t crossed 32K in a single run, and most long runs ended with me thinking, “could I really push another 10K after that?” I was about to find out.
I got up early, ate, and drove to Brighton. Not too hot, not wet. A decent crowd — 1,300 trail runners. The route: 36K of trail across the South Downs, joining the main Brighton Marathon at Madeira Drive for the final 6K to the finish at Hove Lawns.
9:30. Off I went.
And then, the knee
The first 5K went perfectly. Steady pace, decent group around me, no one pulling me along too fast. Then, around 10K — just before the big climb up Ditchling Beacon — my knee twinged.
I’d had niggles in training, mostly under control, mostly the price of pushing the distance. I’d hoped it would hold. It didn’t. The pain came mainly on the climbs and descents — the flat was fine — so I held back, adjusted, and kept moving.
At 18K we hit a long, steep descent down to the halfway outpost. I walked it, and by the time I got to the bottom I was almost limping. I remember thinking, “I’m not sure this is going to hold together for another 21K.”
So I refuelled. Walked a bit. Eased back into a slow jog. The pain dulled to a manageable ache. The plan changed: forget the target time, slow the pace, walk where needed. After four months of training, I wasn’t about to give up. That’s not what we do.
Just finish
The kilometres ticked by. Eventually, the trail spat me out at Brighton Marina, with just a stretch along the seafront before joining the main marathon. One more outpost, then effectively a 5K park run equivalent to the finish.
By now my knee was on fire, and it had dragged my hip into the argument because I’d been compensating for so long. Both were screaming. But we were still going, and we were finishing this.
I was just past 5 hours. I knew the maths: I can run a slow 5K in under 30 minutes. I can walk one in 40–50. Worst case, I walk the rest and get over that line.
Joining the main marathon was a lift I did not know I needed. More runners, more supporters, music, noise, the atmosphere was electric. I ran, walked, occasionally limped. Past the pier. Onto the last stretch of seafront.
As I came round to Hove Lawns I could see the finish tower across the way. Less than 2K to go. Then I heard my name. My wife and daughter were at the side of the road. A quick hug, a few words, and I pushed on for the line.
5:41:11
I crossed the line surrounded by hundreds of main marathon runners. 5 hours, 41 minutes, 11 seconds.
I had done it. A marathon. Medal in hand, finisher’s shirt over my shoulder, knee and hip threatening to walk off the job entirely if I did not sit down at once.
I felt emotional. I usually do at these things — the London to Brightons, Hyrox, and now this. There is a moment after a long, hard effort when relief, exhaustion and a flood of chemicals all arrive at once, and it’s amazing and draining in the same breath. The sense of achievement really is exactly how people describe it.
Why I keep choosing this
At most events there is an MC hyping the runners, and the line I hear most often is some version of: “Feel good about what you are about to do. Remember — you chose to do this.”
That sticks with me. I am incredibly lucky that I have the choice to do these things, because so many do not. That is why I try to do as much as I am able while I am able. One day, that choice might not be a choice anymore.
Until then — onto the next one.
