Pop Muzik Marathons

UPDATE !! Pop Muzik Marathon Challenge complete !! Thank you to everyone who supported it along the way; it means the world x

NEWSFLASH: Over the last couple of years, the world has been in a right state.. Me, personally, I’ve struggled with a lot of things, as we all have, and we’ve all lost a lot. One of my constants over that time which has really helped me, has been running. I’d not run for years, I always hated it, up until it being the only exercise we could really do. Since NYD 2021, I’ve made a real effort to do it as much as I could. I did a couple of laps of Hackney Downs (gotta be less than 3km?) and was full-on blowing, it was horrible, but I managed to complete the Hackney Half that year in under two hours, and I was buzzing. But then life got in the way…

This time in 2022, I was 2 stone overweight, unhappy within myself, travelling to and from London 4 times a week, and trying to make a life and business work (which turned out to be impossible). I hadn’t run for 6 months but I’d signed up for the Hackney Half. With two weeks to go, zero training and a weekend in Paris consuming my weight in booze, bread, cheese and snails, I was in such bad nick and an absolute mess. After just about managing to plod around I promised myself that by the time I was 37, I’d have entered and completed a Marathon.

So, over the last 10 months, I’ve really gone for it. Shed the weight, been running regularly, all with completing a Marathon in mind. I applied to enter the NYC Marathon as I haven’t been for years and it’s somewhere that still has a huge place in my heart. At the same time, I applied for London and got rejected, so I thought, why not Paris? It's near enough, somewhere I know and love and would be a good place to measure myself versus the previous year. Before I knew it, NYC and Paris were on, and I’d managed to get a cancellation for London. So, I’d gone from never running one to then being entered into fucking three. I spoke to my Dad about it, who reminded me of something about those locations…

When I was a kid and travelling all over the place, every day of the week playing footy, me Dad had an F Reg, Nissan Prairie. It would’ve had to have been well old already when he got it, and it was full-on crap. (Although he still claims it’s the best car he ever had.) It stank of fags, was always full of mud and old kit and stuff but, looking back, as shite as I thought it was, it was perfect. Lads and Dads are in the car, driving all over the country. Port Vale, West Bromwich, Crosby or Burnley, any day of the week it’d have a strong 5-a-side team in there.

One of the main things I can remember is a tape that he picked up from Makro in Knowsley for about a quid. It was a ‘Best of Synth Pop Compilation,’ The first track was Pop Muzik by M. I hadn’t heard this track for years until it came up in conversation with my Dad. If you haven’t heard it, it goes “NEW YORK LONDON PARIS MUNICH EVERYBODY' TALKIN BOUT, POP MUZIK”. It suddenly hit me that I’ve lived and worked or spent a lot of time in three of those locations at different times in my life. The only one that had zero relevance to me was Munich. He said “Why not do the Pop Muzik Marathons?” so Munich is on the list, too.

If I’m doing this, I want it to be for a good cause, not to just challenge myself and beat my own ego. So, there’ll be 13 runs in total, as the best way to train is in race conditions. I’ve split it into two:

March–May

· Olympic Park Half: 5th March ✅

· Victoria Park Half: 19th March ✅

· Paris Marathon: 2nd April ✅

· London Marathon: 23rd April ✅

· HITH Half: 14th May ✅

· Hackney Half: 20th May ✅

· St Helens Half: 8th July ✅

September–November

· The Big Half: 3rd September ✅

· Porto Half: 17th September ✅

· Munich Marathon: 8th October ✅

· The London Bridges Half: 21st October ✅

· Lee Valley Velo Park Half: 28th October ✅

· New York Marathon: 5th November ✅

That’s 223.7 miles that I’ll be running in races over the next 8 months, with the aim of raising £10k split equally across 6 charities which are close to my heart:

Hackney – Women's Night Shelter

NYRR Team for kids

Whizz Kids

Children's Hyperinsulinism Charity

National Kidney Federation

CALM