Taking part in an organised event to raise money for charity, particularly one that is meaningful to you is a roller-coaster of emotions which brings highs and lows. You get to focus directly on the fundraising efforts and completing the event rather than the event organisation.
Background:
My brother passed away in 2012 from an undiagnosed heart condition when he was fit and healthy, working as the Strength and Conditioning Coach for Leicester Riders Basketball Team. As a family, we became aware of the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY), who support families who have lost their loved ones but also proactively lead research into cardiac deaths and have a national heart screening campaign.
This led me to consider events and activities that I could remember my brother by raising awareness and funds to prevent further deaths and my family and I were supported by CRY to established our own memorial fund that ringfenced money within the charity to spend on CRY projects.
Event and fundraising:
The London Marathon is an iconic global event and I know something that my brother would have loved to complete. That gave me the motivation to enter the ballot to take part in the 2019 London Marathon by completing the registration in early May 2018. Months later on a rainy day in October I received an email about the outcome of the ballot, and to my amazement I had been offered a place! I knew I would complete it in memory of my brother and on behalf of CRY.
The charity were so helpful and gave me lots of information about training and planning for the day. Having never been to the event before it was good to make plans early, particularly for accommodation and travel arrangements.
Next came to consider setting up my fundraising page and if I’m honest, that is a difficult bit because writing up your page brings back memories of the people that you are doing it for and you have a whole mix of emotions. You need to balance your information to share your story and connect with people to help towards fundraising goal. This is where your family and friends play a massive part before the day. This social network is really important to help showcase your story rather than feeling like it’s all down to you. I tried to keep the content light and lean on the many national stories that connected the charity to so many families. Remember, there are many others that have a story and situation not too different to you.
As I got stuck into my training from January 2019 I began to understand the commitment this really needed. Preparing your body to run for 4-5 hours takes a long time. I remember getting up on cold February Saturday mornings, locking the front door and thinking “I’m not going to be back home for 3 hours”. What keeps you going is that first motivation of your loved one and the rolling total of raising funds. Keep people updated on your progress but be careful to balance the frequency, I personally find constant updates and requesting donations can turn some people off. I also found that by tagging the charity and the event, you find out about others that are training for the same event as you. It’s great to connect virtually and encourage each other along the way.
To help with awareness and fund raising efforts I sought to find a unique way of adding to my total. Many hold auctions or quiz nights but I wanted to do something a bit different. I settled on 26 miles in 26 days during the lead up to London Marathon for the month of April, asking people to walk, cycle, run or swim a minimum of 1 mile a day for a consecutive 26 days on the lead up to the London Marathon on 28 April. This was epitomised by my cousins son who is 9 years old and completed the challenge, supported by his friends and raised over £500. This allowed him to connect with the charity, the London Marathon and can’t emphasise enough about allowing others to join in you event, even not directly, as much as possible.
Onto the event itself, I felt that my training had gone well but certainly had my doubts about what time I would get. I flipped this to focus on just getting across the line and raising awareness as much as possible. I then thought, if it’s all about awareness, what else could I do? This ended up in ordering the CRY heart costume, a foam heart-shaped costume to complete the event in.
The event itself, from collecting my number the day before, right through to the recovery was such an experience despite the pain of training and getting over the finishing line. I was supported by family and friends on the day and was great to have them dotted around the course to keep up the positivity. One tip though for others would be to agree on a random helium balloon to then have when trying to spot those that have come to cheer you on – with so many people, particularly the last few miles, it’s so hard to pick anyone out in the crowds.
Schools' Active Community Coach 