My Story

The photo shows me a couple of years ago with my (tiny) medal from the very first London Marathon in 1981. There are two main reasons for wanting to repeat this mild lunacy on April 23 this year at the tender age of 70.

I haven’t run a marathon for 40 years – though I’ve done half marathons every year since 2013, so I know I can do it with hard work. Lots of people do marathons now, but at 70 it seems at least borderline eccentric, so years ago I decided I would celebrate this strange milestone in my life’s journey by doing it one more time this year.

Then nearly five years ago my wife and best friend Tessa found out of the blue that she had stage 4 (incurable) lung cancer, as a lifetime non-smoker. The outlook was dreadfully bleak for a couple of months until a biopsy showed her cancer was caused by a gene mutation (ALK+) - rare for smokers but quite common in non-smokers - for which a remarkable new range of treatments has been developed. Tessa’s daily tablets have now kept her cancer shrunken very small for over four years. But it will come back – the drug will fail sooner or later.

So it might seem surprising that I plan to push my 70-year-old body round 26.2 miles of the capital – but far more surprising and wonderful is that Tessa will be there to meet me after the finish. I want to raise as much as I can for the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation charity, because the extraordinary research work that is transforming certain lung cancer treatments must go on so it doesn’t just give sufferers respite, but a cure. The specialists in the field say now that is achievable.

I haven’t done a sponsored race for 10 years to keep my powder dry for this one – so please be generous to help this most worthy cause - my final target is set to raise over £100 for every year of my life so far!

Godfrey Rust