Hello all, I am Harmander Singh, a young 64 year old.
On Sunday 21 April 2024, together with my 80 year old uncle and two children aged 38 and 34, I will be running my 40th consecutive London Marathon. The three generation family team are all part of the most diverse running club in the country (I would say the world) Sikhs In The City. It has members from nine different faiths and none and the majority of the charity executive of nine are women. Our oldest and founder member is none other than Fauja Singh BEM whom I trained to run marathons (at the age of 89, with his last when he was 101) – in addition to over 300 others that include Asian grandmothers. All for free.
My uncle has completed more than 150 full marathons but I overtook him a few years ago and am fast approaching 200 marathons, my children will be running their first – in memory of their eldest sister who passed away aged 42 last September.
I am just as anxious and excited now as I was when I ran my first marathon in the early 1980’s. I have learnt that you have to respect the distance and listen to what your body is telling you.
The months of dedicated and disciplined training to build up your stamina and speed while avoiding injury is a fine balancing act that only patience and an understanding family can enable. The urge to splurge on running gear and diet has to be controlled too.
While the razzamataz of the events and the Expo in the run up to Marathon can get the adrenaline going, I have learnt to control the enthusiasm so that I can savour the atmosphere and learn more about running from the amazing people from all over the world that you meet from when out running and the Expo itself – not forgetting during the race itself – there is always more to learn.
Our club has enjoyed more than a decade of association with Sporting Equals because of the shared ethos of promoting diversity in sport and opening doors to people starting out to making them the best they can in their chosen sports activity. More recently, New Balance has chosen our club to be one of it’s community clubs and we have expanded our club identity exponentially.
Sikhs In The City are raising funds to build a clubhouse in honour of Fauja Singh BEM for the benefit of everyone in Redbridge (North East London) on the run route where I trained him. To learn more, just watch the subtitled interview with Fauja Singh at the link below and if you would like to make a donation that would be great too – just remember that you can set the TIP to ZERO before making the donation to avoid paying more than you intend to.
I will be sharing the experience of the race day very soon after the race.
