WELCOME TO THE BIG MARATHON CHALLENGE!
Meet the four women who we’ll be helping to train for very different goals this spring
PHOTOS: EDDIE MACDONALD
Record numbers of you answered our call for entries to this year’s Big Marathon Challenge, making i t our most difficult year yet for choosing team members. After hours of reading and a few tears, we finally whittled i t down to our final four: Alice Doggre l l , Katie Hainbach, Leah McDaniel and Claire Price. Over the next few months they’ l l receive coaching from Richard Coates at Full Potential (fullpotential.co.uk) as well as k i t and support from our shoe and apparel partner ASICS; supplement partner Solgar; and nutrition partner HIGH5. In December, the team met up with each other and their coach for the f i r s t time and had a physio assessment from Michael Harrop at Pure Sports Medicine (puresportsmed.com). With their training plans ready, they’ re a l l set!
Twitter: @LeanMcdaniel18
LEAH McDANIEL
Age 28
From Wrexham, north Wales
Big Marathon Challenge To rediscover her sense of self,following the sudden death of her husband in 2014, and to raise money for Save the Children
Day job Mum to Bowen, two-and-a-half years old
Leah’s motivation for running a marathon is deeply personal: in 2014, when she was four months pregnant with their first child, her husband Brett was killed in a car accident. During the months that followed, she moved back from Texas to north Wales and gave birth to her daughter, Bowen – but, she says, she didn’t know where her life was going. Leah hopes that running the London Marathon she’ll be able to rediscover herself and raise vital money for Save the Children.
Why did you enter Big Marathon Challenge? I thought this might be the little push I need that I can’t back out of it.
How did you start running?
I played tennis to quite a good level as a junior and I would run all the time, but I hated it; I much preferred to be on the tennis court. In 2012, I ran a half-marathon with my sister and then swore off running.
In 2014, I lost my husband, had my baby and was just muddling through life. I came back to the UK and just thought, “I’ve got to change my eating habits, I’ve got to lose weight and I’ve got to get healthy.”
I’d been with my sister to a few races and thought, “I’d like to be one of those people.” So I took myself to parkrun and I just got absorbed into the community. I loved the buzz. Running became like therapy for me, and the feeling of accomplishment as I did a bit more each week – I couldn’t replicate that anywhere else in my life.