James Howarth - My Story Bournemouth Marathon - Festival of Running

I have just spent 30 minutes looking for the most depressing, ill looking picture I could find of myself to head up this funding page and then it came to me, that this is not about that, it is about courage, defiance, resilience and determination that despite the prognosis and diagnosis, it is all about living and most significantly living for the four most important people in the world, the ones in the picture I finally chose.

Some of you will remember, my never ending, persistent relentless chipping away at all of you for money last year, when Nick Convey ran his first Marathon. He/we, you all raised an amazing amount of money to buy an I Stat machine.

An I Stat machine, is effectively, a machine that is able to test blood in around 90 seconds, instead of the normal two hrs, which in the case of a cancer patient, not only can be life saving, but it can be life changing.

Sadly, despite raising more than enough money to buy the machines, my innocence meant that I was unaware that hospitals have lots and lots or procedure, policy and protocol, that means I could not simply rock up with this machine and they would start using it. They required funding for maintenance, training, replenishing kit amongst many many other things. What most people would do is donate the money to the hospital and walk away. That never felt the right thing to do, it was what the nurses and doctors had told me would be transformational to their working lives and to patients, I knew from experience the difference it would have made to me.

So I took the decision, that I would attempt to raise an amount of money that they could not afford to turn down.

The Plan - To re-visit the site of last years amazing event, but this time with a team involved, all from different periods in my life, so as to have the broadest possible fund raising reach. We are looking for 15-20 participants, to participate in the variety of events that stretch across the weekend of 6/7th October 2018.

There are kids events on Saturday 6th 1-2KM, all 3 of my amazing children are participating, there is a night glow fun run in the evening of the 6th, both 5KM and 10KM.

On Sunday 7th, there is a competitive 10KM, Half Marathon and Marathon.

12 people have already committed, but please use the link below to sign up.

https://www.bournemouthmarathon.com

As for me, despite Anna's wishes I am going to attempt to do the 5KM fun run on the Saturday evening.

In the past year, after fighting for 4 years, I have lost my job as the Principal of The Hathaway Academy, taken early retirement on the grounds of ill health, something to me, for those of you who know me, which is as shocking and more upsetting than being diagnosed. Teaching and leading schools was my life.

As for me, I sit on a precipice awaiting my latest scan, knowing my trail drug has a shelf life that is now past and living in and through the pain of a failing kidney....knowing I have already lost the other one.

If as a collective, we can get anywhere near £20K.....Wow