My name is Ben  and am an avid runner. Since joining the congregation at St Mary's church, my wife Jo and I have been made to feel very welcome and despite not always being able to attend regular services we have made some good friends already and assisted with a few fundraising events.

The main one that sticks in my mind was the quiz back in the early summer and I noticed it was raising money for Christian Aid. 

Fast forward 4 months and I received a Golden bond place courtesy of Christian Aid at the  London Marathon  next year which coincides with St Georges Day. It will be my 8th marathon and 4th at London in total (my last being in 2011). I will be  training with local Thatcham running club Team Kennet alongside the many miles I have to do each week and various  weekend races. This I hope will get me to my goal of 3hrs. For any marathon runner this is a huge achievement.

To top it off and make it even more of an incentive for people to sponsor me, I am running the Paris Marathon only 2 weeks earlier. So two races for the price of one. 

In terms of how much, I am to raise £2000 in return for my place and this means I have until June - two months after the race - to fundraise. This will not be an easy task but I hope to; arrange a race night in February at the school where I teach, get the school children to run a mile and therefore each class has ran a marathon distance, sell cakes at church, sponsorship from friends and family and auction off/guess the weight prize of two Christmas cakes made by Jo.

Please spread the word about this fundraising adventure and help me to embrace not only the fundraising but the hours and hours of training that is needed to complete this mammoth and quite possibly insane task. I will not be attending as many services due to races taking place on Sundays but hopefully this will be forgiven. 

Thank you and God Bless.

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