Mrs Chapman writes below about her personal challenge - to run this week’s Blackpool Marathon!

This year Baines School has started working with a new charity called BecomingX. The main aim of the charity is to inspire young people to achieve their full potential, no matter what their starting points are. As a school we have benefited from the charity already with video resources, the CEO leading sessions for our students and providing free tickets for 10 students to see the Ant Middleton Show in Blackpool. We have some discounts and are hoping to take some members of the Student Council to the Bear Grylls Adventure centre in July too.
To embrace this principle, I asked every member of staff and student to set themselves a challenge this year that would be really difficult for them to complete. I am pleased that 3 staff have already achieved these goals, I am waiting for the finalised student challenges. For my personal challenge, I set myself the ultimate challenge for me, to complete a Marathon.
The marathon I set myself was the Blackpool Marathon ‪on Sunday 28th April‬. I cannot believe it is almost here upon me. This truly is the hardest thing I will have ever tried to complete. 26 miles and it starts and finishes on Blackpool Prom.

My training didn't go to plan at any stage. In September, I pushed it too quickly and hurt my knee. In December I got Plantar Fasciitis, which is very painful and left me unable to run for 5 weeks. In February I got that horrible bug, cough and cold so that was another 4 weeks before I could run again.
At last I got back to running and building up my distance. I had hoped my longest run before the marathon would be just over 20 miles. Alas, my hip flexors and mind were not up for it that day and I only managed 18 miles.

So on Sunday, I will be lining up on the prom in Blackpool with all of those other people and I have 8 miles to add to my longest run.
However, as my Just Giving page increases with donations, this gives me more determination to complete the run. I do hope that my trials and failures on the way will inspire our students that they can achieve anything if they decide to try and put in hard work.

I will be running for two charities: BecomingX (who sponsor schools where there is high deprivation, especially in Africa) and Teenage Cancer Trust which is one of our school charities. I would really appreciate any donations you may be willing to give. (Please follow the link below.)
Mrs Chapman

www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Alison-Chapman10?utm_campaign=lc_frp_share_transaction_fundraiser_... ... See MoreSee Less

21 hours ago  ·