I hope the major motivation for me taking part in this fundraising campaign will be clear from the website you're currently reading. Teachers across the country are in need of support - both emotionally and practically. Our charity provides it; whether over the phone or online. For that reason, I'm very proud to be able to say I work for the charity and very keen to help out however I can. If we can meet the fundraising target of £5,000, we can help a further 200 teachers next year.

But why running, you may ask? There are probably hundreds of other ways I could try and attract sponsorship: trekking across Nepal in a pair of flippers, for example, or sitting in a big bath of beans for a month and reading the complete works of Dostoevsky. I could hurl myself repeatedly from airplanes, attached awkwardly to a bearded Australian, or stand on Berkhamsted High Street dressed up as Admiral Nelson and perform S Club 7 dance routines. With such options available, why pick the singularly dull option of trekking 10km across asphalt or forest path every other Sunday wearing shorts and ugly trainers?

I'm not a natural runner, I think it's fair to say, although perversely this is precisely why I took up the sport in the first place. I've heard it said by amateur psychologists that decisions in your adult life are influenced by a profound desire to atone for the many mistakes of youth, and my assumption of running as a pastime a few years ago is testament to this theory.

Never bad at sport at school - although never brilliant either - I took no great pride in athleticism. I was reasonable at hockey, and knew few greater feelings than weaving a well-weighted pass through the sticks of our opponents to a team mate up the wing. Occasionally I enjoyed a game of something else, too; football of course, cricket, tennis, even rugby had its moments, although I always viewed cross country as the recreation of the criminally unbalanced.

But adulthood, not uncommonly, has made me think more about my health, particularly as the evidence around my waist that confirms the detrimental nature of an occasionally excessive consumption of alcohol, and a diet that too often includes large portions of rubbish, has become more difficult to ignore. Regrets are no good for you, of course, but if there was anything I'd change about my teenage years it would be an tendency towards indolence; a increased reluctance to take part in sport; a preference to drive rather than walk once I'd obtained my licence; and a willingness to allow broadening tastes in leisure activity, such as good food, decent ale and languid evenings of good company but minimal activity, to replace instinctive childhood habits of enjoying the outside and taking part in something physically demanding, whether scoring goals, climbing trees or riding bikes.

May years later, in 2008, the impulse to intervene positively in my own physical health had become strong enough to drive me to action. I trained successfully for the London Marathon and completed the course in just over four and half hours; not bad, really, for a man largely unpractised in physical exertion lasting longer than an occasional five-a-side or decent DJ set in Brighton.

A few more, shorter runs followed, but by the end of the year I was again out the habit. Not that this prevented me trading on the reputation of a successful runner, of course. Up until last Christmas I was still regaling girls at parties with tales of my athletic prowess, before realising that the 18 months it had been since I last competed probably precluded me from legitimately engaging in this kind of boasting. I was demoralised: a lack of exercise had ensured I had lost a hitherto steadfast string to my bow during the ferocious game of archery that was taking place between me and a friend in his downstairs hallway that night. My arrows were off kilter and whistle ineffectively passed the ears of my targets. I was forced to retire in the early rounds of the competition. What bigger motivation could be provided to don my running shoes and pound the pavements of Hertfordshire once again?

There's a serious point to all this, of course. Physical and mental wellbeing are fundamentally linked. Actively improving your own physical health also improves your own sense of self-worth; neglecting it can reduce it. By exercise on a regular basis, even at a moderate level, not only do I improve my own physical health - but also my own sense of emotional wellbeing.

So by running these races I get to help others, but also myself. Given those two impulses are so often presented as incongruous, it's an opportunity that I couldn't let pass.