Abdi

On Wednesday evening I joined a number of Serpentine Club runners for a steady run around the 3 Parks (Hyde, Green and St James's) at around 4:00 per km pace. I was feeling a little stiff from the track session the previous evening but good enough to get a good run in.

During the run a friend of mine Abdi came bounding up alongside me before we had a good chat about how his training was going. Half way round our conversation was cut short when Abdi informed me that he had to take his leg off to drain the sweat in the knee socket caused by the humidity in the air!

In one of the first races that i did over the Serpentine 5km course I was approaching 3km and noticed Abdi a few seconds in front of me and was staggered at how well he was running. I thought there was no way that I was going to be beaten by a guy with one leg, to my relief I did beat him... by a few seconds.

It is amazing what he has achieved and the courage and humility that he goes about it. Unfortunately he won't be able to run in the Paralympics next year due to the distances only going up to 400 meters but he does tell me that he is going to be running the London Marathon! If he does I can assure you that he will beat a great many abled bodied athletes and he'll do it with a big smile on his face.