DONE!

Despite a knee injury a month from the day itself and a tapering consisting of stopping all exercise, I finished in 3 hours and 29 minutes. It was painful, but worth it and is down to all the support on the day I received and to all you generous people who inspired me home to raise money for this charity. Thank you all.

Gracie Fitch was born on 22nd October 2011 to very proud parents Sonya and Jim, but after 3 weeks she briefly stopped breathing and was rushed to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital. After several tests and scans, she was diagnosed with 2 serious heart defects; transposition of the great arteries and a hole in the heart.

She was immediately helicoptered to Great Ormond Street Hospital to be operated on in their specialist cardiac unit. After a successful operation known as an Arterial Switch, she sadly went downhill and it was discovered that she had Respiratory Syncytial Virus infection (RSV) which resulted in bronchiolitis.

After all the specialist care that could be offered to stabilise little Gracie she sadly suffered a cardiac arrest due to her lungs being damaged so badly by the bronchiolitis. After being stabilised it was decided that her only chance was to be placed on ECMO a machine which basically breathes for her, oxygenating her blood from the outside. GOSH is one of the only specialist centres for ECMO in the UK.

Gracie spent 34 days on ECMO but successfully came though with the world class care that GOSH provided for her and is now an amazing little daughter for Jim and Sonya and sister to Evie.

Please give a little something to this amazing hospital as miracles really do happen there like this one.

And thanks in advance for anyone who does contribute, especially if you have been generous to me before on other events. It truly is appreciated and is not taken for granted.

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. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.