If you would like to support Keith, head to his fundraising page here
A well-known face at the RFU will be taking to the streets of London on 26th April as part of the Injured Players Foundation’s fundraising squad in this year’s London Marathon.
The RFU’s Medical Research lead Keith Stokes will join 11 more ‘Rugby Runners’ helping to raise valuable funds for England Rugby’s charity and the injured players it supports.
Keith, who coaches at Oldfield Old Boys RFC, Bath, is one of the world’s leading researchers in sports injury prevention and has been inspired by the work of the IPF in this field.
“I have worked on injury prevention in rugby for over 20 years, including on research projects supported by the IPF,” he says.
“I have seen how valuable the work of the IPF is and the impact t it has on people. I would like to help in a small way and running the London Marathon is one way of doing that.”
Explaining how he has worked alongside the IPF, Keith says, “We've worked on a few projects, the primary ones being around understanding catastrophic injury rates and mechanisms.
“We aim to get good information about what happened at the time of each injury to see if there are any patterns to help determine what might create a greater risk of catastrophic injury occurring.
“From a research perspective, the challenge is that these sorts of injury are so rare that it's very difficult to start to find those patterns, but it’s obviously also a good thing that they are rare.
“When they do happen, they have such a big impact on people's lives that they are some of the most important injuries for us to try to understand and ultimately try to prevent.
“The IPF follow a really sensible approach in pulling together information over a number of years, and that’s important because although it may be frustrating wait for answers, it’s the best way to properly investigate and understand these occurrences.”
Keith couldn’t be more positive about the IPF team or the support they provide, saying:
“They’re just great people, they really are. The support the charity provides is amazing and they’re really good colleagues to work with.
“One thing that’s struck me over the years, and it’s not the case for everybody of course, but so many of the players that have had life-changing injuries, who could so easily be angry and resentful, still feel part of the rugby family and I think that’s the thing that’s really inspirational.
“I’m very confident a lot of that is down to the great work of people in the IPF team. The fact that they provide so much support, the fact that they get to the injured player and family so quickly, all of that really must provide a real safety net for those individuals.
“We talk about the rugby family all the time and we say how special the game is and I think the IPF really embodies that.
“Because at the very worst moments of people's lives, they do so much to help.
“For me that’s what the rugby family is about, at the most extreme end, supporting each other.”
Speaking about how his marathon training is going as he aims for the ‘magic’ four hours, or in an ideal world 3 hours 45 mins, Keith says;
“It’s going ok, it’s getting a bit real now. The last long run has been done, so that's good.
“This is my first marathon. I’ve done a couple of half marathons, but this is definitely a step up.
“I’ve spoken to Adam Reuben, England Rugby’s medical lead for the pathway, who ran for the IPF last year, and he said he really enjoyed it.
“I've tried not to be that person who tells everybody I'm doing the marathon all the time, but those who do know have been very supportive.
Speaking about what he’s looking forward to and what he’s dreading, Keith laughs, “At the moment, I’m dreading the whole thing, but the specific part of the course I'm dreading is around Canary Wharf because that just feels like a long way from anywhere!
“Overall, I’ m just looking forward to being part of it. Everyone says it's the noisiest few hours of your life. It’s also the only time that many of us will get an opportunity to feel like an elite sports person because people are genuinely cheering for you. That’s something that doesn't happen elsewhere.”
Keith admits that some of his long runs of up to 34K haven’t exactly been plain sailing, with one resulting in a stumble and trip to A&E for stitches to his head, and others simply resulting in a stitch!
“Some of my long runs have gone really badly, pretty horrific in fact, but I’ve done them,” he laughs. “Luckily the inner competitor voice told me I had to keep going.
“If marathon day is equally as challenging, I’ll focus my thoughts on not letting people down and how the money we’re raising will help injured players.”
If you would like to support Keith, head to his fundraising page here
