I am extremely fortunate to have been given a place in the 2025 TCS London marathon by the British Heart Foundation (BHF)

The BHF is a brilliant charity, extremely close to my heart, if you'll excuse the pun. BHF is the biggest funder of research into heart and circulatory diseases in Europe.

Those in my running world will already know how close and almost inseparable Rebecca Reid and I are with our trainers on. She is my closest friend and means everything to me.

In 2023 Rebecca underwent a VT ablation surgery after having two sustained VT episodes when running. A Ventricular Tachycardia (VT) is a dangerous heart rhythm that can be caused by a multitude of factors and can be life threatening as the heart isn’t able to regulate its pace and can cause all heart activity to stop. Unfortunately this is what had happened to Rebecca when I got a call and had to rush up to Basingstoke hospital in November. Fortunately the doctors were able to shock her heart back into a normal rhythm in A&E.

After 3 weeks on the Coronary Care Unit at Basingstoke Hospital Rebecca was transferred to the Royal Brompton where she had an 8-hour ablation surgery and was later fitted with an S-ICD which will protect her in the unlikely event of any dangerous rhythms returning.

18 months later Rebecca will be lining up beside me on the start line of the London Marathon. Our training and running the race together will be a testament to everything that we’ve both had to go through to get there, but also to our friendship as there is nobody else I’d want to share the moment with.

I've had to overcome both physical and mental adversity to even be in a position to run London 2025

It's been a long journey back from Hip resurfacing surgery in 2022. With numerous setbacks along the way, including a further operation in Feb 2025 to have bone spurs shaved off the hip and in doing so my hip flexor was cut in half which took a month to recover from. WIth the help and support of Rebecca and close friends, I've been able to find my fitness again.

Please donate anything you can to support the great work the BHF do.

Thank you for reading. Si x