Our story

On the 20th of September 2025, myself alongside my 2 friends Naomi Hill and Niamh Toner will be taking on the challenge of running 2 Miles Every Hour for 24 Hours in honour of my beloved uncle who died suddenly a few years ago from a heart attack, leaving a huge void in our family.

This will be my second fundraising event that I am carrying out for Heart Research UK as part of their Heart of Scotland appeal and I am so appreciative of everyone who helped to raise so much last time for this incredible charity.

We lost my Uncle Geoff 3 years ago very suddenly to a heart attack at age 55. He left one morning to go out walking his two dogs, Bobby and Wallace, up one of the local hills and didn’t come down. Everything changed that day for our family. The part that we will always remember is his two dogs never left his side throughout that day and protected him till the end. That feeling of sudden shock and grief from losing someone to a heart attack is something I’d like no other family to have to go through, which is why I’m raising money for Heart Research UK.

At the time of his death, I was a physiotherapy student in my final year of placements working on hospital wards. [I was studying in a city several hours away, and was unable to immediately be with my family following his death due to my placement obligations, whilst being acutely reminded every day of him whilst working with my patients.] Now, as a qualified physiotherapist working in healthcare full-time, it’s even more clear to me the importance of funding health research, particularly into conditions such as heart disease, as I see the positive impact it can have on people and families who otherwise would experience grief and loss like ours.

It’s been a difficult and strange 3 years but as a very close family we have helped each other through. We have always held close to our hearts that we lost him doing what he loved most, and even though it’s tough processing the loss of him particularly during life’s milestones when there’s still this strong desire to share these events and achievements with him, we all know deep down how proud he would be of us all and will be watching over us all.

Walking his dogs around East Lothian was one of the things my uncle loved the most, and the biggest thing we have always taken some peace in is that he died doing what he loved most. This has also inspired the challenge I will be taking on in his memory this time, as I intend to follow some of the paths he did in my 2 Miles Every 1 Hour challenge by running across Balgone Estate, a local and much-loved dog walking spot in East Lothian. I have chosen to do it here as it was a place he loved walking and my gran and my aunt continue to walk here every day with their dogs so it’s a place with a lot of sentiment for us.

We miss him dearly but he would have wanted something positive to come from his death, which inspires me to continue raising money for this amazing charity. My hope is, through doing this challenge locally in a place so well-frequented by other walkers, that I can use it to raise awareness about what Heart Research UK do to pioneer research into heart disease and to raise money to help forward the treatments and advancements that could help prevent others going through what we have.