5 Marathons in 5 Days – Nicola Forwood

I held my breath as I turned 38 last August and waited to fall apart… It’s the age that my husband, Ben, was when he died of a brain tumour. It left me, at 30, a single parent to our 2-year-old daughter Poppy. I’d always known that surviving my 38th, or 39th birthday would be hard. Turning 38 marked the last birthday that Ben ever celebrated, and 39 was the first birthday that he never got to celebrate. As it turned out, my 38th birthday wasn’t as terrible as I’d imagined, but mainly because I had thought of something worse.

I realised that I could figure out the exact date when I would be the age that, if I were Ben, I would die. I’d know the exact time on that day, that if I were him, I would take my last breath – and that was unbearable. Of course, I tried not to figure that date out, but as the weeks went on I just couldn’t help myself. And there it was… A date at the end of February 2022 that I knew I couldn’t cope with.

As the date drew nearer my feeling of dread grew. I didn’t want to have to cope with that day, to have those thoughts, to live those moments. I did not want to. Actually, I didn’t think I could. I needed a coping strategy, and as I have done many times over the past 5 years since Ben died, I turned to running. I’ve been run streaking since April 2017 and running has been the most effective form of therapy I’ve tried… by miles (please excuse the pun but it’s true!). I decided that to survive that date I needed to give myself something more immediate to worry about.

Picking a challenge was relatively easy. There are two main marathon/ultra race companies local to me: Punk Panther and It’s Grim Up North (IGUN). I’ve run a few marathons and over the past few years have run a few of the Punk Panther ultras and absolutely loved them. I knew that running far wasn’t going to be enough.

I needed a challenge that I had no clue whether I could complete or not. I spotted the IGUN Grimnificent 7: A series of 7 trail marathons starting on a Monday each consisting of 4 laps of 6.55 miles. What was more Monday – Friday had different courses that ran around some of the most beautiful reservoirs in North Yorkshire. So having never run 2 marathons in 2 days I decided I would run the Monday – Friday marathons. 5 marathons in 5 days.