Update from Sunday 25th April -
Our weekend didn't exactly go to plan..
We got to the Excel centre to find out 130 people had applied to run for GOSH and there as only 60 positions.
Myself, Kaytee and Ben left the centre completely disheartened . All our efforts of training, changing our diet, cutting out alcohol whilst being a student!! organizing travel, making sure our running vest and GOSH tshirts were sent, along with press - had gone to waste.
I woke up the following morning to see the marathon on BBC2 feeling I had left everyone down; the sponsors (all of you lot), myself and worst of all, the children at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
It was then myself and Andy decided to get dressed anyway, and run along the Thames to Richmond Park covering just short of 22 Miles. With My limited training due to my situation and our unfortunate luck with the marathon, my spirits were hard to keep up. However, we weren't going to let our bad luck, the wet but humid weather stop us after all the hard work and generous donation we had received from family, friends and people who had read my story in the paper.
Myself and Andy encouraged each other through when the other got tired. In honesty, I was dance-skipping at the beginning which is probably where most of my energy went!!!
The further we ran, the more I began thinking about ''why'' I was.
My experience with becoming ill, which I had pushed to the back of my mind came flooding back. I remembered how scared I was and how much pain I felt and began reliving the moments which I had spent when I was well enough to sit with Daniel.
It was almost like, although it wasn't the London Marathon anymore, the emotion that came with running and for something so personal- was indescribable and overwhelming... it was my own marathon emotionally.
I have overcome so many obstacles and things going perhaps, not the way they should medically, that just because there was complications being able to run this years marathon, to me it only mean that we just had to think and act on the spot to try something else. So that's what we did.
I have photos from my run as well as videos to prove it was done, which I will calibrate in to one video asap for you all to see. In the meantime, please take a look at this video which will remind you why you donated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pNQNcL6A50 (This is about my personal experience at GOSH and in memory of Daniel;
this is not intended to offend anyone. Jo&Mark- I hope you are okay that I spoke of Daniel x)
We have raised £9O2.2O for Great Ormond Street in a month, had amazing support from everyone that knew/read my story, ground to walk on and running stuff already with us- that it seemed we had everything else in our favor and with Daniel watching - I wasn't going to let anything else get in our way from doing what we had set out to do.
For all of you that helped me raise £9O2.2O, your generousity is truly appreciated and I apologize that we could not do the VLM, however, we did run.
I hope you are all understanding of our circumstances and know that GOSH are grateful, as you are helping a child to receive a better quality of life.
I am now going to take part in the 5K run for Great Ormond Street in June to make up for the Marathon (possibly Kaytee, Ben and Andy too) So far I have run 22 Miles with Andy and doing another 3 Miles for the one in June will get me to 25 Miles in total, closer to the 26.2 Mile goal of the Virgin London Marathon that happened.
NOT SATISFIED?
If you would like your donation back as we did not complete the marathon, we ran our own course, then please email me at jailaurent-x@hotmail.co.uk and I will contact JustGiving customer service and try recover it for you.
Once again, I'm sorry to you all that it was not possible for us to run the Marathon. I have sent you all emails.
A HUGE thank you to all of you who have supported me and donated, you have done a wonderful thing. As a patient myself I know how far it can go. Keep watching this page for photos/videos from the Battersea 5K run in June (coming up) and from the 22 Mile run I did with Andy.
Jade :)
