Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.  You can read about my training so far on my blog here

As many of you are aware I set out two years ago to run the London Marathon, raising money for BHF.  My true intentions were to not only raise money for this charity but to be better, faster and raise even more money for a much smaller charity that needs our help just as much - Heartline.

Two years of training and many races I have achieved my ambition.  By running a good time for my age (3 hours 32 mins) in the Thanet Marathon in Kent in 2009, I was able to secure a place in the London 2010 marathon on merit and in so doing have been able to support the charity of my choice.

Heartline is a voluntary organisation set up to offer help and support to families of children with heart disorders regardless of how slight or severe the condition may be.  As a small charity, they aren’t able to get places in the London Marathon to offer to fund raisers, so this is something of an unusual opportunity for them that we’d really like to take advantage of.  They have been invaluable to my best friend and continue to offer support.

 

Here’s my friends story and the reason I took up running:

As many of you are aware one of my best friends has had 2 children born with heart defects.  She has a 7 year old with tetralogy of fallot and had another baby in 2006 who died at 7 weeks having been born with tetralogy of fallot with absent pulmonary valve syndrome.  I want to raise as much as possible to enable Heartline to continue the brilliant work they do in supporting families of children with heart problems.

Please, if you could contribute something to help it will go a long way and it’ll be wonderful to raise a good amount of money for such a marvelous charity.

More information on Heartline can be found on their website http://www.heartline.org.uk

PS Matthew is also running in the London Marathon this year having got a place through our local running club this week.  Between us we expect to do over 1,000 miles in training for this event.  Matthew is also helping raise sponsorship for Heartline and has his own page here http://www.justgiving.com/MatthewBarnettVLM2010 . Although we are collecting most of the sponsorship and co-ordinating efforts through this page, feel free to donate on Matthew's page too!

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Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.