Hi I'm Jemma, step sister of Hayley Rooke. Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. Please read this little snippet about my memories with Hayley and why I'm doing this... 

This April marks three years since Hayley passed away on 23 April 2018. This memorial marathon takes place on Saturday 24 April and follows a canal route from south Birmingham to Tamworth Castle. 

Hayley spent many years in her late teens living the canal life, including living on a boat or two! Tamworth Castle was her teenage hangout place. Hayley came into my life when she was 14 and I was 17. We were 17 and 22 respectively when our parents got married (photo of us at wedding attached.) 

Our step-sister bond got closer as she blossomed into a young woman and mum to little Jacob. We had a holiday in Kefalonia when she was in the early stages of pregnancy. We'd accompany my mum and Paul to the local pubs... we even sang a duet on karaoke at one of them! She poured ice water all over me for the ice bucket challenge in 2016. But most of all, we had many a nice family meal. Tales of her adventures were always good around the dinner table, and so, with the canal and castle forming the route, this Memorial Marathon day is a day to bring Hayley's adventure loving life back into the forefront of our minds. 

The reason I'm running a marathon is because I have never ran this distance before. The most I've ever ran is a half marathon (13.1 miles), so this is a new challenge for me. 

I've only had six weeks to train for it (that's when I decided to do it) and although I already have a good base-level of fitness to start from, I'm definitely going to find this challenge physically and mentally tough, including the training I've been doing, getting out there for longer runs than usual and on days when I don't feel like it. 

However, I wanted to do something that was out of my comfort zone that would require me to channel Hayley's amazing mental resilience and positivity in the face of a big physical demand... 

Hayley's daily existence coping with CF was extremely physically demanding. A battle to breathe, to not let the relentless coughing get her down. She stayed positive and sociable with friends and family, even when she probably didn't have the energy. She dedicated all the energy she had to being a brilliant mum, friend, daughter, sister. She cared about others and relished in hearing about their lives. She was determined to live the best life she could. As CF weakened her physically Hayley's mental strength was like titanium. 

I will never forget how she helped me with my Clubbercise classes in Ashby. She was the person taking the money and stamping the cards on the door at the school where I held classes. This is an exercise class that Hayley couldn't even imagine being able to join in with, since she had an Oxygen tank on her back for the second year we did it! Yet there she was, positive as anything, stamping cards of the 30 or more women coming through the doors to do something she couldn't, wishing them hello and having good banter with them, like you know she would. She supported my fitness business totally voluntarily and selflessly simply because she was a social butterfly at heart and it cheered her up to come along.

This attitude to life is what you probably remember about Hayley too, and, if you'd like to join a few of us at Tamworth Castle for an hour or two at the end of the Marathon then please come along at around around 4pm / 5pm to hang out, bring a picnic or just have a walk around (can't promise i'll still be walking!) 

Please donate what you can to this cause, which goes towards improving the facilities and lives of adult CF patients on the ward where Hayley was treated all her life at Heartlands Hospital Birmingham. It was Hayley's request that, when raising money for CF, it always goes to her specific hospital rather to the national CF Trust charity. 

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