We're helping Kit raise funds for the British Heart Foundation. Here's Kit's story:

I have a genetic condition called Familial Hypercholesterolemia (don't try to pronounce it!). This gene runs through my dad’s side of the family and multiple generations of Ellens have experienced cardiovascular issues. Effectively my body is not able to process and remove cholesterol in the same way as most people.

The reality of the condition is that a healthy diet and an active lifestyle alone will not manage it. It needs to be treated with medicine and I wasn't doing that. Having lived a “relatively” active and healthy life, I had a heart attack in April 2024 at the age of 37. I was out for a run with my dog Poppy, about 1 mile from home, when it happened. Poppy got me back home to my wife, Kate, who was upstairs putting our 2-year-old daughter to bed. Mercifully, she was asleep before I got back home.

Aside from being the single most painful and frightening experience I’ve had, the event caused damage to my heart, and I was diagnosed with heart failure. I was told that the ejection fraction of my heart (the amount of blood the left ventricle pumps with each beat) was at 35% following the heart attack. For most people this figure should be between 50% and 70%. An arterial stent was fitted, and the message from my medical team was simply that I needed to wait for four months before having an MRI to assess whether the heart could fix the damage. All they could offer at that stage was the very wides of prognoses – things would either be really good, OK, or pretty bad. This is where the British Heart Foundation came in.

These things are always worse for the people around you. Kate was my rock and did an incredible job of supporting me, shielding our daughter, managing work, and researching what everything meant and what we could do to improve my chances. Time and again she would say to me “I was reading this article on the British Heart Foundation website”. Whether it was about diet, exercise, what to expect from the recovery period, the reality of the FH gene, or the psychological impacts of what we had gone through as a family. The BHF provided support and answers to questions others couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, at a time when we were most vulnerable.

The BHF were also present throughout the six-week cardiac rehab programme I did; offering tips and advice on how to progress with exercise when I had lost all confidence. I also know that research funded by the BHF led to the discovery that a drug I was prescribed, and continue to take to this day, specifically helps the left ventricle to repair following a heart failure diagnosis.

After four incredibly anxious months, I received the results of the MRI in August 2024. My ejection fraction had improved considerably to 52%. The best news we could have hoped for. Whether it was the medication, the rehab, or my relatively young age I will never know. But I do know that the British Heart Foundation was there when my family and I needed them, and that their funded research had a direct impact on my situation. I will be forever grateful to them, to my incredible wife, and to the friends and family who supported us at such a difficult time.

I’ll be riding the London to Brighton Bike Ride 2026 with a group of close friends. We’re calling ourselves “The Lionhearts”.

Please help us raise as much money as possible to support the amazing work of the British Heart Foundation.