Hi all,

I’m running 20 marathons in 2020 to raise money for one of the local hospices in Birmingham, St Giles. My uncle, Gez, sadly passed away earlier this year and I want to give something back to a charity who helped Gez so much over the last few years.

St Giles support people in the Birmingham community who have illnesses that may not be curable, as well as offering support for families and helpers. The St Giles team provides individually-tailored care either at the hospice or in patients’ own homes across Birmingham, and it is provided free of charge to those who need it. In the past year, St Giles provided care to over 7,000 people, however they know of 1,000 more people locally who need their support. Although St Giles receives some funding from the Government, they rely heavily on donations and fundraising – and this has spurred me on to do the '20 in 2020' challenge.

All marathon entries, transport, accommodation etc will be completely self-funded, so 100% of your donations will go directly to St Giles. The most marathons I’ve run in 1 year is 6, so this is a major step up and hopefully a big enough challenge to encourage people to donate money to support St Giles.

The original plan was to run marathon events in Liverpool Docks, Gloucester, Shrewsbury, Kent, River Thames, Barcelona, Manchester, Brighton, Stratford, Worcester, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Shipley, Salisbury, Bath, New Forest, Rutland Water, Chester, Leicester & Athens. After the first 5 marathons all other events were cancelled due to the current pandemic so I am running my own themed marathon events for the remaining 15. The full line up is:

1. Liverpool Docks - Jan 1st
2. Gloucester  - Jan 19th
3. Charles Darwin Day (Shrewsbury) - Feb 7th
4. Mods vs Rockers (Kent) - Feb 16th
5. Thames - Mar 7th
6. Sutton Park - Mar 21st
7. Back Garden - Apr 4th
8. Front Drive - Apr 25th
9. St Francis of Assisi - May 15th
10. Lichfield to New Street Train Line - May 23rd
11. Sutton Fun Run x3 - May 30th
12. Shan Fermín Bull Run - Jun 13th
13. Summer Solstice - Jun 20th
14. Villa Park - Jul 11th
15. James Staunton - Jul 18th
16. More Miles Than Venice Canalathon - Aug 1st
17. Putting St Giles On The Map - Aug 14th
18. JLR - Aug 28th
19. Birmingham Catholic Diocese - Sep 12th
20. St Giles / Gez's landmarks - Oct 3rd
    

If anyone fancies joining me on any run, you’re all more than welcome! If running the 20 marathons isn’t enough, spare a thought for my fiancé, Fran, who will be supporting me throughout the year for a grand total of 100 hours… Now that’s worth a quid, surely?!

All donations, no matter how big or small, are really appreciated and help St Giles continue to care for families in Birmingham.

If you would like to find out more about the work St Giles do you can visit their website: https://www.stgileshospice.com/

I’ll be logging all training runs & marathons on my Strava page if you would like to follow: https://www.strava.com/athletes/17822374

Thank you in advance for your donations & support.

Mark