Duncan's London Marathon Blog by Duncan_Keene

• Who are you running for?

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  Apr2020125:03 p.m.

  I started writing this blog post as soon as I got my place in the ballot….

   “You have received a place in the Virgin London Marathon 2012”

  The texts I sent paint a picture: Delight. Panic. Fear. Excitement.

  Responses varied…

  “I didn’t get in, really gutted”, “Well done”, “Good luck”, “I’m definitely coming to watch”, “I won’t be impressed ‘till you finish”…

   But mainly:

   “Who are you running for?”

  I hadn’t thought about it. Running is a hobby for me. I’ve never ran for a charity. I’m not uncharitable (though who holds their hands up to that?!?), but I inherit a preference to do these things on the quiet (oops, just blogged about it). A scrooge like grumble resonates from the old man when the clipboards and emails go round; “No one sponsors me to play Golf”. He whines. Not that he’s ever asked them to. I wouldn’t normally ask for sponsorship for running, but this is London, this is different. The odds are 10-1 against getting through, and the thought I can’t escape from is; if someone else had got my place, they’d have done it for charity, so I should do too.

  “I’m doing this sky dive for X”, “I’m climbing this mountain for Y”. Are you? Is that why you’re doing it? Not for the fun, challenge and adventure of it? Who’s going to ask for their money back if you don’t manage it? We raise money because we believe in a cause, but the relationship between the activity and the cause can be loose. Lots of us do these things because we want to. But, they do raise money too.

  “Who are you running for?”

  By definition they are all worthy causes. For some there’s no decision to make. A family or personal tragedy, a cause chooses them. It’s their entire reason to run, running to remember, to focus the mind. For sanity.

  I’m lucky. That’s not me. I’ve not lost a sibling, a parent, a child; I don’t have one particular charity I devote my life to. But I want to choose something with meaning. Deeper down, which charities do I have a deeper affinity with? I looked again.

  “Who are you running for?” “Run for a cause close to your heart”

  Dave was my scout leader and friend from the age of 11 until he passed away when I was 24.  During my time in Scouts I was probably one of the cheekier members of the troop, Dave didn’t take nonsense and I’m sure I caused him the odd moment of annoyance, especially round the campfire where I played the clown. But I felt over the years he was proud I stuck at it and stayed in the Scouting movement. Dave, John and Max were our main scout leaders (not to disparage other notable leaders and helpers especially the other Dave) and each had their areas of expertise, but all with a good handle on teaching lads banter and developing our senses of humour. Dave, wound us up, tricked us, teased us, fooled us and taught us valuable life lessons from a hands on farmer to a bunch of pampered school kids.

  After Scouts, Dave and the other leaders became friends with our group as they joined us leading our walks. Ventures became Network and still our leaders helped on walking weekends and expeditions. Dave and Max joining us walking in the Lakes and the Peaks on many an occasion.

  I remember having a team in the two-day Leicestershire Ventures Walking competition ‘High Adventure’ one year. A fairly experienced but unfit team, we found the first day’s winds a bit brisk for our liking so sacked off the highest checkpoints, meandering round the valley’s picking up lower value markers. At the overnight stop we got royally drunk on smuggled Port and were happy with our lot. Starting the next day later than most other teams. As we got round the first corner we bumped in to Dave who was operating as a Marshall, he could tell we were in a fairly lazy mood.

  “You’ll never catch Team 21”

  “Shut up Dave”

  “You might as well all keep slacking about like this, you’ll never catch Team 21”

  “Leave us alone Dave, we’re hungover”

  “Listen you’ll never catch Team 21”

  At this point I realised he might be giving us a hint. Glancing down at our team sheet I saw we were Team 21.

  “You know I’m not allowed to interfere…” he walked off.

  Needless to say after that we stormed round the course to make sure we won!

  I don’t want to dwell on the day he passed away. It was a fresh February morning, we’d risen early and it appeared a beautiful day was ahead of us. We split in two walking groups and it wasn’t until our group got down from a wonderful day’s walk that we gained mobile phone signal and discovered Dave had left the other group to return to his car and had a heart attack and tragically had not survived.

  We weren’t able to contact anyone until after the police had informed his family. His family felt like our family, we spent an afternoon and evening as a group of friends united in our grief, waiting for the call from his family to know that they knew. There’s no way a marathon can hurt more than that.

  Reading back my thoughts on Dave makes me remember a very special person and friend, but it wasn’t a unique or special relationship, Dave was like that with all the Scouts. At least 20 of my closest friends could be writing this, probably 50, 60, 70 more of those that went before and after us too. That's how good he was at what he did.

  I’m going to run for the British Heart Foundation and when it gets tough I’ll think of how Dave inspires me and remember the happy memories his name brings. Whether it takes me 4 hours, 5 hours or longer, I’ll have enough of those to keep me going.

  Can't wait for Sunday!

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  Comments (1)

  • Liz_hudson 'What a touching memory and a sure fire way to keep you going when it gets tough. Hope you have an amazing day.' added 20th Apr 2012

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