From a young age I watched my dad suffer with heart disease, I would come home from school and wonder if I would be there to greet me. In 2002 we were given the news that dad could have a heart transplant and it would mean that his life would change for the better. When I received the news that he had got a match, my heart skipped a beat, I was happy, scared and excited that dad would get better. I missed the majority of my GCSE year and stayed with him everyday, I never wanted to leave him. The progress that he made was remarkable. The Doctors and all the staff at the hospital were fantastic and I started to see the life coming back onto my dad's face. That day we were all rewarded with 12 extra years with my dad. Those years were a struggle for him as the transplant brought all sorts of complications and unfortunately just a few weeks before I was due to give birth to my daughter in 2014, dad passed away. It was the worst day of my life, my hero taken from me. I found it hard to grieve as I had a baby to look after and it took months/years in denial before I found something that would help. I started couch to 5k to help me gain the head space that I needed to grieve. Running became my safe space! 

When the college revealed that their charity for 2019/2020 was the British Heart Foundation and they had spaces for the London Marathon, I thought that this was the year that I was going to push myself, If Dad could suffer all those years.. surely I could run a marathon. Dad.. my hero... I'm going to smash this for you!

Thanks for visiting my page. I'm raising money for the British Heart Foundation's research and I'd be so grateful for your support. 
The BHF has helped halve the number of people dying from heart and circulatory disease in the UK but sadly every day hundreds of people lose their lives. It's only thanks to support from people like us that the BHF can create new treatments and discover new cures. £24 could pay for two hours of research by an early career scientist, but every pound helps so please give what you can to help me hit my target.