What the London Marathon Taught Me About Resilience, Grief and Keeping Going

Yesterday, I completed the London Marathon.

Today, I’m back at work. Although if I’m honest, walking downstairs currently feels like a separate endurance event.

But the marathon itself was only part of the story. Because if you’d told me six months ago that I’d be standing on the start line in Greenwich, I genuinely wouldn’t have believed you.

The Road to the Start Line

Training plans usually assume consistency. Mine looked slightly different.

In October, I broke my foot in two places playing football. November and December were spent in a walking boot.

By January, just as things were starting to improve and I began running again, something still didn’t feel right. Another scan revealed a crack in my shin.

Not exactly textbook marathon preparation.

And then in February, life shifted in a much bigger way.

We lost my Poppa after more than a decade living with Lewy Body Dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Anyone who has experienced dementia in their family will understand the complexity of that kind of grief. Watching someone you love slowly disappear in pieces over time is incredibly difficult.

That loss became part of the reason I wanted to keep going. Not just to complete the marathon. But to do it for something bigger than myself.

Why I Ran

I ran the London Marathon in support of the Alzheimer’s Society — an incredible charity supporting individuals and families affected by dementia every single day.

Over the past few months, through the generosity of friends, family, colleagues and kind strangers, we raised around £6,000 for the cause.

That support genuinely carried me through some difficult moments. Because marathon training is never just physical. At times, it becomes emotional too.

The Thing About Resilience

We often talk about resilience as if it means being endlessly positive or mentally tough all the time.

But I don’t think that’s what resilience actually looks like.

Resilience is usually quieter than that.

It’s not the absence of difficulty. It’s the willingness to keep moving through it — even when progress is slow, even when the finish line feels distant, even when the reason you’re doing it has shifted into something more personal than you expected.

Some days during training, I wasn’t running to get fit. I was running to process something. To make sense of loss. To find a bit of steadiness in an uncertain time.

And that, I think, is what resilience actually is.

Not toughness. Continuity. Choosing to keep going when stopping would be entirely understandable.

What This Has to Do With Work

Leadership and resilience are deeply connected — and not in the way motivational posters suggest.

The most resilient leaders I’ve worked with aren’t the ones who appear unaffected by difficulty. They’re the ones who understand themselves well enough to know what depletes them, what restores them, and how to keep functioning through challenges without pretending nothing is happening.

That kind of self-awareness doesn’t come from a workshop. It comes from lived experience — and from taking time to reflect on what that experience is actually teaching you.

The marathon taught me a few things I’ll carry into the work I do.

That preparation matters more than inspiration. That support from others matters more than individual toughness. And that sometimes the most important step is simply the next one — even when you can’t quite see the finish line from where you’re standing.

Thank you to everyone who donated, cheered, sent messages, or simply asked how training was going. It meant more than you know.