We are running in memory of our beloved friend Caroline. Caroline was beautiful inside and out, she was funny, she was kind, she was naughty, and she was a brilliant friend to her friends. She lit up any room she walked into, and the world is a poorer place without her in it.

Gina, Kate and Hannah were friends with Caz for over 30 years; we cannot really remember our lives without Caz in them. We all went to school together and remained friends afterwards, supporting each other through life’s ups and downs. We were there when Caroline was diagnosed with bipolar, but we didn’t realise then what it meant for our amazing friend and could not have imagined that it would end up costing her her life.

Bipolar is one of the biggest mental health challenges with over one million people in the UK diagnosed with it. Devastatingly bipolar increases an individual's risk of suicide by 20 times. One in 20 people who take their own life in the UK have a diagnosis of bipolar and that doesn’t account for the many who don’t yet have a diagnosis or never will. On 4th September 2020 Caroline's condition proved terminal and the burden of living with bipolar for the last 20 years became too much. While her death leaves an enormous hole in the lives of so many, we take comfort in the fact that she has now found peace.

Despite bipolar being such a far-reaching mental health illness, Bipolar UK received under £I million in funding last year. Your donations will make a difference in supporting them to provide a comprehensive peer support service (support groups, chatline, eCommunity) and in acting as the voice of the bipolar community to build a society that enables people affected by bipolar to live well and fulfil their potential.

None of us can imagine the demons Caroline had to fight during the two decades she lived with bipolar. She signed up for Bipolar UK newsletters sometime around 2015, and we like to think that by doing this she found some comfort in her suffering. We want everyone with bipolar to have access to all the help they need, whenever they need it. Six days before her 43^rd birthday, we want to make Caz proud of us, the way we were always so proud of her.

Together with Greg, a good friend of Caroline’s who is married to one of her other best school friends Sophie, Caroline’s brother-in-law Matt and Hannah’s run buddy Otilia, we will run the Brighton marathon, our hometown marathon, through streets that hold so many nostalgic memories for all of us. As we run past Roedean, we will get flashbacks of all those netball and hockey matches we played up there with Caroline, who was an excellent sportswoman and triumphed at any sport she turned her hand to. We will also pass the pubs and clubs we frequented, remembering nights we shared at The Event, The Honey Club and Paradox, and all the mischief we caused in our seaside town, on a day of endurance in her honour.

This one’s for you, Caz.