What is the challenge?

I plan to run all four events in the Edinburgh Marathon Festival, so this will be the 5km and the 10km races on Saturday 23rd May and the half and full marathon back-to-back on Sunday 24th May.

There will be lots of other lovely people joining in for different stages of the race too.

Why do this?

So for those of you that don’t know my full story, I’m the eldest of four and since our mum passed away four years ago, all of a sudden, my brother, sister and I have been the welfare guardians for our other brother Matthew who was born with the cyclomegla virus, develop mental delay, autism and in his teenage years developed epilepsy and severe anxiety. As a result he needs round the clock care, which is currently being provided by the amazing team in one of Capability Scotland’s amazing care homes.

Permanent residential places like this are gold dust and very hard to come by, which is something our mum battled with for so long; to find the best place for Matthew to spend his adult life. Loosing our mum suddenly, without warning or reason, was the worst possible thing to ever happen to us, so the little light that was (an extremely rare) place in a brilliant establishment like the one Capability Scotland provides, six months later, gave us hope for Matthew’s future.

Where are the donations going?

To cut what could be a very long story short, I’m going to be doing this challenge to raise money for the rebuilding of Matthew’s care home (as it is currently built on a flood risk site) so they can have a hydro pool that provides physical and mental therapy for Matthew and the other residents. There are countless benefits to having a therapy pool, but when it comes down to it, Matthew’s severe needs means he struggles with life and swimming is truly where he is at his happiest.