Annie and Max are running the London Marathon

Annie: We are both running for a Lloyd’s charity partner, which is the Mental Health Foundation. It is so important to raise money for mental health support, I think whether you struggle yourself with mental health or you know people that have, it’s an important charity that helps to raise awareness and support that community. A lot of people struggled during the lockdowns and didn’t have access to that support network.

Max: I'm incredibly fortunate that I've never had to battle any demons of my own, I've thought about this quite a lot and it’s no secret that some young men are suffering in silence. I know that within my peer group, which is predominantly young men, that there definitely are a few of them that will have suffered or are suffering. We want to raise awareness that there are resources out there and people want to help and support them.

Annie: My training is going really well. I’ve been following a 16 week programme and I'm usually running four or five days a week, one of those would be a long run, which builds up each weekend. I run with a few different running clubs which helps with my training too, we go out and do a 10k run or a tempo interval route once or twice a week to work on speed. Outside of running I play netball and go cycling as well. Lessons learnt from previous marathons is you can't just run as part of your training programme and actually if you do just run, you're not necessarily going to improve on your speed, and more likely to be prone to injury. It’s about building core strength too with cycling, pilates and yoga and that really helps in the long run (no pun intended!)

A lot of it's around the personal challenge, health, and fitness goals. I am type one diabetic which adds an extra element of challenge in terms of managing my sugar levels when training. It’s good for me to be able to do what everyone else can do and run this distance, despite having something else to contend with.

Max: Training has been eye opening! I got my place with 13 weeks to go and found a non-tailored programme, so have jumped in at the deep end. I'm doing a similar structure to Annie, I'm probably running four times a week and have continued gym work to try and mitigate the risk of injury. Training really can zap your energy, I am having to exercise in the morning before work, it does take sacrifice and it can quickly impact your social life, evenings, and weekends.

I'm hoping that by doing this it will give me the marathon bug! You’ll be talking to me next year and I may have signed up again, famous last words.

Annie: I know a lot of people think I can never run a marathon, but if you train for it, you can do it. Every time you do a run, you see that you improve, then you can run for longer, or faster, become stronger. It is like with anything in life if it's hard then it probably means it's worthwhile.

Max: Don’t look at yourself in the present moment and think ‘I couldn't run a marathon’ because you definitely can't ‘just’ run a marathon, you need to accept that you're going to put the hard work in and trust the process. I signed up with a friend, there's two of us, and being able to hold each other accountable has helped a lot with our motivation. But essentially, step outside of what you think is possible, and give it a try!

To find out more about Lloyd's charitable giving initiatives you can contact the Global Community Engagement team.