The London Marathon: Testament to the incredible potential of human beings

Mara Yamauchi has travelled a long and circuitous way to get to London in time for the first Virgin London Marathon, thanks to the volcanic ash cloud putting pay to flights into the UK for the last week or so. However, the Briton, who has a chance of winning the race, is remarkably upbeat, describing her journey that took six days, 5 countries, a four seat plane and more than €1000 in taxi fares as ‘frustrating’!

For others, their journey to the start line may not be as physically long-winded but metaphorically, they may be every bit and more arduous than the one Mara Yamauchi has taken.

The fantastic and humbling thing about the London Marathon is that people from every walk of life take part. In the main, the majority of people running are not elite runners. They are regular people who have Monday – Friday, 9-5 jobs, and in some cases, hardly did any exercise at all until something prompted them to change that.

A couple of stories from last year’s marathon alone, leave me teary eyed – that of a woman who barely used to move off her sofa but completed the London Marathon to raise money for The British Heart Foundation when her own daughter’s life was at risk from complications with her heart, brother and sister runners, Mark and Felicity who finished the marathon holding hands in memory of their later brother James, who died of leukaemia.

These stories bear out the facts we know – we can change our behaviour, in fact, we can achieve anything we want to if we have strong motivation to achieve it and we align our beliefs and attitudes behind that goal.

Setting a goal that you have strong intrinsic motivation to achieve, i.e. you’re doing it because you want to do it, not because anybody is making you do it or giving you a reward if you do it, ensures your motivation is high.

Coupling this with the belief that you can achieve it, even if it is a very small belief at the outset, will be enough to get most people into a position where they can start training. Flowing from this belief will come a resilient attitude that continues to support you during the hard miles of training, when the mornings and evenings are dark and your limbs are aching and eventually the small successes you achieve along the way – your first 5 mile run, your first 10 mile run, will provide you with the concrete evidence you need to grow your belief…….and almost unconsciously it’s evident that your behaviour is changing.

I know I will be in awe of everybody running the London Marathon on Sunday but some stories in particular will stick with me – I look forward to updating this blog with a handful of those next week, which I know already, will epitomise the incredible potential of human beings.