Chris Walker
Running London 2018
Fundraising for Blind Veterans UK
Story
UPDATE - Good luck to Lily today (17 March) as she takes on her “Skate-a-thon”! 10 miles on the ice to help raise money for BVUK. Go Lily...we’re so proud of you!!! She’s keeping an eye on this page so feel free to sponsor her here.
UPDATE - Wow, what a day! A massive shout out to Jamie Weller and Freddie for coming along to Jesse Gray Primary School today with Jamie’s Olympic Torch and Invictus Games medals and posing for 200 photos with the children. We raised over GBP200 for BVUK!!! Check out the photo below to see how good a time everyone had.
UPDATE - A huge “Thank You” to everyone who bought raffle tickets. You helped raise well over GBP1,000 for Blind Veterans UK! To all those companies who so generously donated prizes...thanks for making it all possible. To all the lucky winner...enjoy your prizes!
UPDATE - A huge ‘Thank you’ to Lily, who has decided she wants to help me fundraise and has agreed to do a 10 mile sponsored skate.....pretty daunting when you’ve been skating for less than a year! Feel free to sponsor her via this page and I’ll make sure she sees your comments.
Close your eyes.....
Did that make it difficult to do something we all take for granted, like read the rest of this post? Now imagine living your life every day not being able to see. I find that hard to comprehend.
And yet, for some people that is a daily reality. Jamie Weller is one of those people and he’s the reason that Ed and I have signed up to run the Virgin Money London Marathon 2018 in support of Blind Veterans UK.
Jamie lost his sight while serving with the Royal Navy many years ago. Since then, he has reinvented himself numerous times to prove that losing his sight doesn’t have to stop him achieving his goals. In fact, losing his sight and Jamie’s approach to dealing with that has opened up opportunities in the years since that nobody could have imagined.
Opportunities like being the first blind person to pilot a hot air balloon over London. Or helping to establish the first ever Team GB biathlon team targeting qualification for the 2018 Winter Paralympics in South Korea. Untimely injuries mean that Jamie won’t be competing in South Korea, but that didn’t stop him being part of the UK team at the Invictus Games in Toronto in September 2017, coming home with four medals. Only a few short weeks after returning from Canada Jamie was on the road again, this time to Nepal trekking to Everest Base Camp to raise money for Help for Heroes.
Ed and I saw first hand how determined Jamie is when he asked if we would guide him round the 2016 Robin Hood Half Marathon. After getting bored of constantly slowing down so Ed and I could keep up, Jamie finally decided to stay close to faster runners and leave us behind. We were both well beaten.
Jamie is inspirational. If you want to know more about some of his stories - check out these links:
- Jamie on Armed Forces TV: https://youtu.be/9KTLKeY4XmY
- Jamie on the spirit of challenge: https://youtu.be/05dEhs2K-RU
- Jamie on Notts TV: https://nottstv.com/programme/sports-week-02-08-17/
And so back to Ed and I. I’ve been saying that I’d like to run a marathon for over 10 years now. Ed has at least run the distance before, but wants to rise to the challenge again. And seeing just how much Jamie has achieved over the years despite not having something as fundamental as his sight means that we can no longer justify the excuses and procrastination.
Blind Veterans UK (https://www.blindveterans.org.uk) is a wonderful charity that helps people like Jamie. Any support you can give will be hugely appreciated, not just by us but also by all the people that your money will go to help.
Thank you and please cheer us on next year on 22 April.....we’re going to need all the help we can get even though we can see every one of the approximately 55,000 steps we’ll have to take!
Chris & Ed
UPDATE - Wow, what a day! A massive shout out to Jamie Weller and Freddie for coming along to Jesse Gray Primary School today with Jamie’s Olympic Torch and Invictus Games medals and posing for 200 photos with the children. We raised over GBP200 for BVUK!!! Check out the photo below to see how good a time everyone had.
UPDATE - A huge “Thank You” to everyone who bought raffle tickets. You helped raise well over GBP1,000 for Blind Veterans UK! To all those companies who so generously donated prizes...thanks for making it all possible. To all the lucky winner...enjoy your prizes!
UPDATE - A huge ‘Thank you’ to Lily, who has decided she wants to help me fundraise and has agreed to do a 10 mile sponsored skate.....pretty daunting when you’ve been skating for less than a year! Feel free to sponsor her via this page and I’ll make sure she sees your comments.
Close your eyes.....
Did that make it difficult to do something we all take for granted, like read the rest of this post? Now imagine living your life every day not being able to see. I find that hard to comprehend.
And yet, for some people that is a daily reality. Jamie Weller is one of those people and he’s the reason that Ed and I have signed up to run the Virgin Money London Marathon 2018 in support of Blind Veterans UK.
Jamie lost his sight while serving with the Royal Navy many years ago. Since then, he has reinvented himself numerous times to prove that losing his sight doesn’t have to stop him achieving his goals. In fact, losing his sight and Jamie’s approach to dealing with that has opened up opportunities in the years since that nobody could have imagined.
Opportunities like being the first blind person to pilot a hot air balloon over London. Or helping to establish the first ever Team GB biathlon team targeting qualification for the 2018 Winter Paralympics in South Korea. Untimely injuries mean that Jamie won’t be competing in South Korea, but that didn’t stop him being part of the UK team at the Invictus Games in Toronto in September 2017, coming home with four medals. Only a few short weeks after returning from Canada Jamie was on the road again, this time to Nepal trekking to Everest Base Camp to raise money for Help for Heroes.
Ed and I saw first hand how determined Jamie is when he asked if we would guide him round the 2016 Robin Hood Half Marathon. After getting bored of constantly slowing down so Ed and I could keep up, Jamie finally decided to stay close to faster runners and leave us behind. We were both well beaten.
Jamie is inspirational. If you want to know more about some of his stories - check out these links:
- Jamie on Armed Forces TV: https://youtu.be/9KTLKeY4XmY
- Jamie on the spirit of challenge: https://youtu.be/05dEhs2K-RU
- Jamie on Notts TV: https://nottstv.com/programme/sports-week-02-08-17/
And so back to Ed and I. I’ve been saying that I’d like to run a marathon for over 10 years now. Ed has at least run the distance before, but wants to rise to the challenge again. And seeing just how much Jamie has achieved over the years despite not having something as fundamental as his sight means that we can no longer justify the excuses and procrastination.
Blind Veterans UK (https://www.blindveterans.org.uk) is a wonderful charity that helps people like Jamie. Any support you can give will be hugely appreciated, not just by us but also by all the people that your money will go to help.
Thank you and please cheer us on next year on 22 April.....we’re going to need all the help we can get even though we can see every one of the approximately 55,000 steps we’ll have to take!
Chris & Ed