Paralympian doing year-long running challenge completes original London marathon
Double gold Paralympic athlete Richard Whitehead completed the original route from the 1908 Games.
Double gold Paralympic athlete Richard Whitehead has completed the original London marathon route to support grassroots running during a year-long challenge.
The Paralympian, who runs with prosthetic legs, is aiming to complete 20 marathons across the world in 2025 to reach his goal of finishing 100 marathons in 21 years.
He completed runs in Dubai, Miami and Malta before marking his fourth instalment at the Original Marathon event across London on Saturday.
He ran from Windsor Castle through Eton, Slough, Harrow and Wembley before finishing at the now-demolished White City Stadium in west London, mapping out the route of the original 26.2-mile marathon, which started at the London Olympic Games in 1908.
Speaking to the PA news agency moments after completing his run, Whitehead said: “There were lots of enthusiastic runners at the start and the weather gods were with us today.
“Hearing about the history and the legacy of the event was so important that I participated in (this event) because it highlights the importance of the grassroots side of running and supporting not only my own journey, but also celebrating past performances.”
He said the most challenging parts of the run were “the climbs and some of the hills”, adding it was also difficult running through the busy parts of Wembley and weaving through crowds of people.
“For me, it’s really difficult, obviously, running on prosthetics, to be able to navigate some of those conditions,” he said.
He joked that reaching the finishing line was the highlight of the race, but said he felt inspired by speaking to other competitors.
“Everybody starts their (running) journey in a different position, but everybody finishes on the same finish line,” he said.
“It’s great to be able to celebrate that with a wider running community.”
He hopes his 20-marathon challenge will inspire people to believe “anything is possible” and encourage more people living with disabilities to participate in sport.
“Hopefully I can make my journey more impactful by getting more people with disabilities involved in sport, but also empowering the able-bodied community to be more diverse.
“Sport is such an incredible thing, whether it’s volunteering, spectating or participating.
“I’m very thankful that I’ve been very successful with winning my Paralympic gold medals and making world records all over the world.”
The athlete won gold at the London 2012 Paralympic Games for the T42 200 metres with a world record time of 24.38 seconds, and won another gold at the 2016 Rio Games for the same event.
He began his marathon journey on November 2 2004 in New York City and aims to finish his 100th on November 2 this year.
The Original Marathon event was created by Diccon Loy, director at a sports event company, who aims to highlight the origin story of marathon running.
“The original route – this story – hasn’t been told enough about the 1908 marathon. So many people accept that the marathon is 26.2 miles and in fact there’s a whole story behind it,” the 53-year-old from Surrey told PA.
“The pioneers of marathon running all those years ago really set the standard to which all marathons run today.”
This is the second year Mr Loy has hosted the event, and he said he wanted to celebrate the women participating in the run to mark International Women’s Day.
His inspiration stemmed from the fact women were not allowed to run an Olympic marathon event until the 1980s.
Last year, the event hosted 75 people – to honour the original number of entrants in 1908 – but this year Mr Loy doubled the number to allow more women to participate.
“This year, we knew that the event falls on International Women’s Day, so we thought we would respectfully double (the number of entrants) to increase it to 150 in respect of that, because women weren’t allowed to run the Olympic marathon until 1984, which is outrageous,” he said.
He added that Whitehead’s participation was “a real honour”, saying the Paralympian was “super supportive” of the event.
