Father & Daughter take on double marathon challenge.

Sunday 21st April 2024. No backing out now - up at 5:45am to get to Blackheath. I’ve never run London before so bring it on. Maddy and I start around 10:45am and hope to run it under 5 hours. Please send us a WhatsApp message after 1pm which we will hear it through our ear phones. Thanks for all the sponsorship - smashed our target so hope to raise £4000 by the end of the day. Love to all.

Update: 7th April 2024. we have completed our first half of our double marathon attempt – Maddy finished the Brighton marathon on Sunday 7th April in 4:24 mins and I managed it in 4:39. It was a hot day, but thankfully the wind kept you cool. We have recovered well and now look forward to the London Marathon on Sunday 21st April. If you are likely to be in London then please send us a WhatsApp messageDuring the event as these will come out in our earphones which are all super encouraging Maddy 07702571828 & jaime07866536277. We have managed to succeed and achieve our target of £2620 by a fairway. I would love to get to £4000 and be able to give £1000 to each charity. Hope to see you in London. J & M

In 2010, I ran the first Brighton Marathon in 4hrs 35 mins with a bunch of close mates. I was 40 years old at the time & my daughter Maddy was just over seven years old and she ran down the Finish line with me which was quite emotional to be running down Madeira Drive holding her hand, but also the fact that I had just run the first ever Brighton marathon - a gruelling 26.2 miles having only run to 22 miles in all my training. One Mountain successfully climbed. I ran it again in 2011and 3012and again Maddy was there for the final sprint.

On my 53rd birthday in 2023, Maddy ran the Brighton half marathon with me and to both of our surprises I managed to drag her down the finish line in 2 hours 2 mins (we both thought she would have left me in the dust).

In September 2023, Maddy told me that she might enter the London Marathon on the 21st of April 2024 and would also apply for me. We didn’t expect to get a place. Some weeks later she received confirmation that she had secured a standard entry place. As a family we were delighted for her, and I was even more delighted that I hadn’t received confirmation so assumed I didn't have to run another marathon! A few weeks later I got confirmation that I had a place – some very mixed emotions. Having ran a few Brighton marathons I thought London might be much more fun, and we could take in the sites. I came up with a good idea that if we are doing all the training, we might as well enter the Brighton marathon as well So we did, which is on the 7th of April – 2 weeks before London.

Around Christmas Maddy ended up in Nottingham Hospital as a patient where she was doing all her nursing training with suspected Covid, which escalated to sepsis, then downgraded to glandular fever and then they thought it was hepatitis. After a week in isolation, they finally let her out, and we still don't know today what her diagnosis was . It was very worrying times for all of us, but she is a little soldier and came out of hospital worried that she would be too weak to run a marathon in a few months time, but the two of us dug deep and got on with the horrible training – her runs were around Nottingham and along the River Trent and mine on Brighton seafront and the country lanes of Mid Sussex. Lonely and wet 3-4 hour runs weren’t much fun.

We are hoping to raise a few £ (£2620.00 which equates to £100 per mile) which we plan to distribute via my Rotary club to local Dementia support groups, some mental health charities, and prostate cancer support – all things very close to our hearts. If you can help by donating a small amount of money then please do – please make sure you include Gift Aid as the government then gives us 25% extra and deducts this from your annual taxable income – costs you nothing. If you are in Brighton on the 7th or London on 21st April please come and cheer us on.

Jaime and Maddy