Hi everyone

As you all know by now, I did it! 3 hours 30 mins 15 secs by my watch and by chip! As you can see from the pic the weather was stunning, warm and mild. I'm really happy with how it went. I felt great at halfway and got slower and slower over the 2nd half. Next time more training! I would like to thank you all for the donations. The charity will hopefully raise over £10,000 from all the runners and will put it all to good use. Not all of it will be spent on champagne, although a couple of glasses after the race didn't hurt! It was good to meet all the other charity runners before and after the race too. I hope they all enjoyed it as much as me and will do it next year? (if they are reading) I'm gonna definately sign up, although I've already put my name down for London too. I think this could be the first of many? Watch this space!

Thanks again everyone,

Tom.

 

Thanks for visiting my JustGiving fundraising page!

As some of you may know/noticed I have been bitten by the running bug in the last year or two. A friend of mine, Tim, noticed all the miles I have clocked up and has talked me in to running the Brighton marathon for the charity he works for, Maternity worldwide.

Now here’s the bit about what the charity does. Please read!

Maternity Worldwide provides desperately needed help to the most disadvantaged pregnant women and girls. Currently concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, Maternity Worldwide are focused on preventing maternal death in childbirth and on improving the survival of newborn babies. They work on improving access for women and girls to hospitals and establishing new rural clinics. They also help facilitate community-based income generation and savings schemes, which helps those least able to afford it to pay for healthcare. The charity also help to set up women’s groups that provide health education, information, advice and support so that they are better able to take decisions over their own healthcare.

So as you can see it is a great cause but also for me it is an opportunity too good to miss for a number of reasons. Firstly it gives me the chance to raise money for a very worthwhile charity.

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Also by you reading this hopefully it will help raise awareness of some of the issues involved with childbirth in the poorer regions of the planet. Please have a look at their website http://www.maternityworldwide.org/ as this will explain in detail their work and where the money goes.

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And for me it is a massive personal challenge. Since I was a wee bairn (I’ve turned Scottish, how strange?!) I have always watched in awe the Olympics, the London marathon and all manner of athletic events and thought; I would love to do something like that one day. Sadly I always assumed it would be impossible for me to do, as some of you may know I thought as a child I may never walk properly, let alone run a marathon! But here I am nervous, but ready.

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So please wish me luck and also send some of your hard earned cash this way as both will be gratefully received!

You know how it works; tick the gift aid box if you are a UK Taxpayer! But just in case you don't, here’s our Graham with a quick reminder.....

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.

Thanks for your time