This April, I will be taking part in both the Brighton and London Marathons, meaning I will be running a total of 52 miles in the same week. I am running these races to raise money for Diabetes UK, a charity extremely close to my heart.

 

Why is it close to my heart? My fiancée Sarah has Type 1 Diabetes. She has had to manage this every day of her life since she was 24 when she collapsed unexplainably at a party. The condition –if not controlled properly– can cause permanent problems such as blindness and can even be fatal. This is not to mention monitoring what to eat, measuring your dosage of insulin, taking into account weather, exercise and a whole host of factors that make your body react in many different ways to insulin.

 

When I met Sarah she did not have the best control of her diabetes, not for lack of trying but she was on a massive learning curve on her own. To give you an example, a typical human’s blood measures around 5millimoles whereas Sarah was averaging 25millimoles – you don’t need to be an expert to realise this is a dangerous place to be, especially as she had spent 18 weeks in and out of hospital on diagnosis.

 

When we met I did not have a clue and made the typical mistake of saying “should you be eating that?” – the cardinal sin when eating with someone with Type 1 Diabetes. I was thrown in the deep end when it came to learning Type 1 Diabetes as our 2nd date was in hospital.

 

Since, Sarah and I have been on a long journey consisting of hospital appointments every other week, rigorous trial and error with eating and insulin dosages, facing fears, dealing with hypos and learning how to control it and I am happy to say Sarah’s average is between 5-8millimoles, which means she is healthy and happy.

 

We are engaged to be married and I want to make a difference in finding ways to manage Type 1 Diabetes even better or perhaps even the cure so we can live a long happy and healthy life.

 

This will be my second marathon but I have never run two in a week. This is a very tall order of 26.2 miles each weekend (totaling 52.4 miles) but I believe I can do it and with everyone’s support I will hit my target of £2000.

 

Thank you for reading and the support

 

Love Sam