When we're little, we don't overthink things. We're brave, confident, we laugh and ask questions. And play. And play. So why stop there? Just because we're adults, it shouldn't mean we stop trying new things. For me, starting a career in early years has meant not just a new job, but new skills, new friends. Like me? Yes, and a new sense of purpose. All that and I can earn while I learn right here in London.

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Hello there, welcome to RunPod, the Run Club of the podcast world. I'm Jenny Faulkner, club leader,

and today, well, I'm really excited to be joined by a man who's in another club, and there are very

few members. It's that exclusive, and sadly, it's too late for any of us to ever be a member,

for you can't join, you can only leave. The group is called the ever-presence,

because they've been present at every single London Marathon since its inception in 1981.

And today I'm thrilled to have Chris Finnell on RunPod. Welcome. Good morning and thank you for

having me. Oh, no, that's right. Listen, what an achievement, isn't it, to have run every single London marathon. That's amazing. It's kind of more about dogged determination than anything else, but I guess that counts for something. Yeah, and this year, the 41st marathon, I'm assuming, your game on for Sunday. Absolutely, yeah. It's obviously in our diary from the moment the previous marathon finishes. So October the 3rd has been in big red letters in my diary for many, many months now. I love that. I love that it's just there. Everything is kind of, did the whole year has to gear around it now? Yeah. I mean, I think my life's geared around it in some ways. I wouldn't necessarily say that to my wife, but it's certainly

been geared around it for probably the last 15 or 20 years. In fact, even as long ago as

1987 when I planned a trip around the world, it was planned that I'd come back in February,

so that I'd have a month or two before the April running of the 1987 London Marathon. And when I ran across the States in 2011 between August and

November, and again, it was designed partly with the weather in mind in the States, but also with

the idea that getting back in November would have given me a really decent lead time into the

following April's London Marathon. You see, that's absolute commitment right there.

Can I ask you then, I mean, if we start with the very first marathon, 1981, why did you sign up for that one?

Well, it actually goes back a bit further than that.

I ran my first marathon in Michigan in the USA in 1979 when I was a student out there at an American

university and I was 20 at the time and I'd always wanted to run a marathon and

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