Thanks for taking the time to visit Rich's JustGiving page!
Thank you all for coming this far and taking a look at my JustGiving page - hopefully once you've finished reading this you will feel compelled and inspired by my own strange and probably misguided decision to not only run the London Marathon for the first time (that's 26.2miles), with only little over 2 months preperation (the recommended training timescale is more like 6 months), but I will be enduring this little trek around the city dressed as a giant Fuller's Ale beer bottle! (it is through them that I acquired the spot in the race and so the costume unfortunately is not opptional).
To be fair, I am very fortunate to be given the opportunity to take part in this event at such late notice considering how many people are desperate to run it each year. If you can call them this, the 35,000 people taking part are actually part of a very lucky and select group. With this in mind, it would be a waste, and a shame to not only want to complete the race and do so to the best of my ability, but if I am going to go through what will certainly be among the hardest 4 or 5 hours of my life, then I would like to make this count for a meaningful and worthwhile cause.
I have decided to raise money for The Rainbow Centre in Fareham, who specialise in conductive education to help children & adults with Cerebral Palsy. The nature of their work not only has a positive effect on the children when they are in their early years, but it then stays with them and they can continue to benefit from the Centre all the way through their adult lives. They're based in Fareham but have had a hugley positive impact on hundereds of young children's lives across the South of England. I have been down to the facility in Fareham and have seen just what a fantastic setup it is, and they are currently planning for, and raising money to build a new wing which will double the capacity of the centre. Any money I raise would be greatly appriciated by the team down there and would go some way to helping them to continue with all their good work for years to come.
Whatever donation any of you make will be appriciated, and to get anywhere near the target stated above would be an incredible achievement by all and would mean my efforts on the track are translated into a gesture for a very worthy cause.
Please check out their website, they've got a 'Wish list page' so you can see just what the money donated can help to buy - http://www.rainbowcentre.org/projects.asp
The costume is due any day now so I will be sure to upload a few preview photo's of me in the outfit purely for your own amusements.
Speaking of which, I would love it for as many of you as possible to make it down, and don't worry about it being too early, I suspect I'll be on the course until mid afternoon at least so that's plenty of time for you to get to the finish line and cheer me well over it - otherwise keep an eye out on the telly as I'm sure I won't be hard too hard to spot!
Thanks so much for all your support, it's massively appreciated.
