For the second time in two years I collected my race number from the expo for the London Marathon and then failed to get to the finish line. Last year, injury at mile 20 meant it was a DNF (did not finish). This year, it was a DNS (did not start). I had done the training. I was ready to run – 2025 wasn’t going to be a fast race, but I wanted my medal after the disappointment of the previous year. I picked up my number with two days to go and then headed back to my parents’ house, where I had been spending a lot of time lately.

My 83-year-old father wasn’t well. Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease more than a decade ago. He was determined to stay as fit as he could. He did a parachute jump at 73. He took to Nordic walking, powering up the hills in Richmond Park several times a week. He rowed the Great River Race, a marathon along the Thames from East London to Ham. He bore his illness with such good grace and determination, even when the disease finally stripped him of his voice, his ability to stand and, finally, to swallow.

Dad had always been my greatest cheerleader, standing at the finish line of the London Marathon year after year with tears in his eyes. In 2016, I ran it for him to raise money for Cure Parkinson’s. Now it was me who was crying because when I got back to the house on the Friday before London, I knew he wasn’t going to be getting up again.

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On Saturday, when I should have been laying out my race kit and counting out my gels, I threw some clothes into a bag and went back to my childhood home. He was still conscious but couldn’t speak. I didn’t tell him I was pulling out of London, as I knew he’d be furious with me. But there was no way I was going to leave him now. My sister and I moved in at his bedside on a 24-hour vigil. I watched the London Marathon on TV instead, next to Dad, who would open his eyes occasionally. I tracked all my friends who were out there. But I didn’t for a minute wish I was with them.

All my life I have always known that my father would drop everything for me. Now, without hesitation, I dropped everything for him. Dad died in the middle of the night four days later. We were there. I don’t know how he powered on for so long without food or water. The human body is incredible; his fight to live was humbling. Hours after he died, an email landed in my inbox. It was a place for the Sydney Marathon in August, to get my seventh World Abbott Majors star. I laughed out loud and looked up at the sky. ‘So, Dad, you did know that I’d pulled out of London, after all. Okay, okay. I will go. I will run Sydney. I will run it for you.’