RESULTS SO FAR..! :
South Africa: 1st place, 2.35.36
London: 4th place, 2.17.46 (an hour faster than last year!!!!)
Switzerland: 2nd place, the wettest marathon ever and I punctured
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
Last year I bugged you to sponsor me to do the London marathon, this year I've quadrupled it - I won the Outeniqua Wheelchair Marathon in South Africa February, I'm doing the Virgin London Marathon on 25th April, Schenkon Marathon in Switzerland on 15th May, and the Real Berlin Marathon on 26th September..and best of all it's for another amazing charity!
Think how easy it is for an able bodied person to go out and kick a football around with their friends after school - and then imagine how rubbish it would be to be a disabled kid who sees their friends playing football all the time but can't join in. Pretty miserable.
If you wanted to run a marathon, all you'd need is a pair of trainers and a path to train on. For a wheelchair athlete to do a marathon, they need a racing chair, gloves, a helmet, access to an accessible track/ smooth-ish road to train on, a coach to teach them the technique..and the list goes on.
Through its WheelAppeal initiative, WheelPower aims to raise £6 million to help over 2000 young disabled people to get into wheelchair sport by helping to provide them with the things they need, whether it be a basketball chair, a tennis coach, or access to an accessible gym to train in. As most of you will know, I'm fairly vocal about how I don't believe that being disabled is any excuse to get fat or unfit, so I'm a huge supporter of this scheme!
I was also lucky enough to personally benefit from the Wheel Appeal. After doing London marathon in a borrowed racing chair last year (lent to me by my legend of a coach, which was also very lucky!) because I couldn't afford to buy one (they're insanely expensive), WheelPower bought me a gorgeous new made to measure Topend racing chair. This has helped to massively improve my times, and more importantly I don't fly out of it going round corners like I did the borrowed one (much to said coach's disappointment at the loss of some of the comedy from our training sessions..)!
So now for the important bit.. WheelPower is a charity. Charities need our money to do the amazing things they do. WheelPower's Wheel Appeal is particularly amazing because it gives young disabled people a chance to get active when they otherwise couldn't have afforded the equipment they needed to get started, so wouldn't have had the access to sport which, as the Olympic Creed says, is a basic human right.. and hopefully the lovely racing chair they bought me, which now feels as much a part of me as my fairly useless legs, will keep helping me to win races too!
For more info on what WheelPower do, and a chance to see my on screen debut, visit www.wheelpower.org.uk/WPower/index.cfm/what-we-do/film.
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.
So please please please be the lovely lovely people I know you are and give even just a little bit of cash to this fab charity!
Much love
Nikki xxxxx
