Hello, my name is Lindsey and I am a 38 year-old Mum, wife and Nursery educator. I am lucky enough to have three wonderful children who are 10, 5 and 1. In 2024, just two weeks after giving birth to my youngest child I was diagnosed with melanoma which luckily was caught early and treated very quickly but it made me realise you really do not know what’s around the corner. After years of quietly saying that I wanted to do the London marathon this gave me the push I needed to actually apply and I only went and got in through the ballot!

I absolutely wanted to use this opportunity to raise money for a good cause. I thought what was worse than me getting cancer and the answer was if any of my children did so I decided to run for a children’s cancer charity.

I heard about a three year old girl, local to the area through a parent at my son‘s football team. She was her niece and her name was Marley. Marley had been diagnosed with a high-risk stage three Wilms tumour, a rare form of kidney cancer. Her parents were fundraising with the hopes of sending her to America for further treatment after she began to not respond to the treatments available on the NHS. The fundraiser was called Miles for Marley and so I decided to run the 26.2 mile London marathon for her.

I began training with no plan just to keep trying to run further! I’m definitely no athlete after not exercising for years and the miles were slow and few to begin with, slotting in whenever I could fit around my life as a busy working Mum. Gradually though I have found my stride and after nine months of training I recently managed to run my biggest ‘big’ run of 17.2 miles which was a huge confidence boost leading up to the big day!

I was so upset though, to recently learn that Marley had lost her brave battle. I can’t even begin to comprehend what her Mum and Dad must of felt to go through every parent’s worst nightmare. They’ve said about Marley,

“She fought the bravest fight, with a strength and courage far beyond her years, and showed us what true love really means.

Marley brought light, laughter, and warmth into every room. Her smile, her little voice, and her spirit changed our lives forever. We are so incredibly proud to be her parents and honoured to have loved her for every second we were given.”

I’ve been given permission by her parents to share Marley’s story and I will now be running the marathon in her memory with all proceeds raised going to a charity of her parents choosing in Marleys name. They have chosen the charity, ‘young lives vs cancer’ after they helped them during Marleys time at Queens medical centre because in their words, “we think Young lives verses Cancer is an amazing charity who directly help family’s and work with hospitals and they do not get any help from the government.”

Every pound raised helps this amazing charity support children fighting this horrible disease and their families. I’m doing this in Marleys name so would love to raise as much as possible to help other children in her memory. Please help by donating if you can or sharing my page. Thank you :-)