Some of you may have noticed that since first setting up this website, the nominated charity has changed. So I thought I had better explain. When I first decided to take on the 1000 mile running challenge I chose to support Imagineering; they are an amazing charity & I would definitely recommend we all go and become tutors at their after school engineering clubs. When I won a place on the Nepal marathon though I started learning more about that.
During my week in Nepal, not only will I be acclimatising to the altitude, I will also be doing volunteer work in the form of rebuilding a school which was destroyed by the devastating earthquakes in April 2015. Over 9000 people died in those earthquakes, and thousands of buildings were destroyed, many of which were schools. In a country where not all children had access to education before the earthquake, the long term damage done by the loss of more schools is immense. Global Action Nepal were already committed to bringing “education for all” to Nepal; to building schools, training teachers and supporting communities, and to having a gender equality commitment in those schools. Since the earthquakes they have only become more passionate, providing hundreds of temporary learning centres whilst they continue to support the building of new permanent schools. To me, this seems an incredible, and very immediate cause. It’s also one I will be personally involved in when I fly out to Nepal for my marathon, so it’s the charity I am choosing to support with my 1000 mile run as well.
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I decided in May that I wanted to push myself and run 1000 miles in a year for charity, so as part of my research I started checking out interesting races I could run, and following running organisations on twitter. One of these was @runningadv who tweeted about a competition to win a place in the Nepal marathon which I entered. To win the place you had to write about why you deserved it; I wrote about all my couch to 5k efforts, and also about my plan to run 1000 miles for Imagineering. Matt, running coach & director of Running Adventures, clearly decided I was a worthy cause, and awarded me the marathon place. Finding out was a real rollercoaster of emotions; delight, surprise, gratitude, and also horror – what was I letting myself in for?! Still, the delight and gratitude won out, and I committed to taking my place (alongside my long suffering husband who has also been given a place as part of the competition, it is on the eve of our wedding anniversary after all) in the Nepal Marathon in November. There’s something about winning this place, rather than choosing and paying for it, that makes me feel all the more strongly about wanting to run well. To complete the marathon, and to do so in the best time I am capable of. I don’t just want to make myself proud, I suppose I also want to prove to Matt (and to Nick, the CEO of Impact Marathons who are the other generous party involved in providing the competition prize) that he made the right choice in picking me as the competition winner. So, in preparation both for the Nepal Marathon, and for a year of running 1000 miles, I have now started my official marathon training plan, put together by Matt. This meant on Monday I donned my Imagineering t-shirt, grabbed my running buddy Charlotte, and ran 8 miles in the 19°C heat and the high pollen count. Here we are enjoying the views on Coventry-Kenilworth greenway:
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AuthorChloe is running 1000 miles to raise money for Global Action Nepal. She's also an engineer and a Mum. Archives
August 2017
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