Hello and thank you for taking the time to read the story below.

In September 2020 my mum was diagnosed with secondary metastatic breast cancer, around 15 years after undergoing treatment for primary breast cancer. Despite knowing that it may not be successful and the horrible side-effects of chemotherapy she still wanted to go through treatment even if it would only give her an extra day. Over the past few months she underwent 5 rounds of chemotherapy and coped with numerous overnight stays in hospital alone and without visitors due to COVID restrictions. Despite enduring all of this, the treatment ultimately started doing more harm than good and the heartbreaking decision was taken at the end of the year to transition to palliative care.

She moved into the Marie Curie hospice in Edinburgh at the beginning of January where she was looked after by the incredible team and also where we were able to visit her. As well as visits from me, my wife and my dad, it also meant she got to see Hamish (our two year old little boy) running around in the snowy hospice garden which brought a warming smile to her face. The compassion, sympathy and understanding that the staff showed both her and us throughout was phenomenal and we are so grateful that she was able to live out her last few days in relative comfort while being afforded the dignity and support that she deserved. Words will never express our current sadness but we have found some solace that she was surrounded by her family and being cared for by such a dedicated team.

Marie Curie have nine hospices around the UK all of which are predominantly funded through charitable donations and I wanted to do my own bit to help cover some of the costs of the great work that they did for my mum and so many others that are in the same situation. In order to provide the care that we received, it costs £60,000 per day to run the nine hospices across the UK and £8,129 for the Edinburgh hospice specifically. This therefore became the target for my 12 month challenge; to try to give back one of the days that they supported us and help them to care for others that find themselves in a similar situation. (Edit: as a consequence of the incredible support, we have already reached the initial target of £8,129 so I am now aiming to get to £10,000!) (Second edit: the donations and support have continued to come in so well that we’ve made a final final revision to the target and are now aiming for £16,258 which would represent 2 days of funding for the Marie Curie team).

And so to the challenge that I have set myself. I will be attempting to run a marathon a month starting in February 2021 with the final one provisionally scheduled for 27 January 2022 to mark the first anniversary of my mum's death. Aside from training, I will be covering a total distance of 314 miles or 506 kilometres but these are just numbers to me at the moment because I've never actually run a single marathon, let alone 12 of them.        

My mum was one of the most supportive people in my life, from cheering my various feeble sporting attempts, helping me dye cheetah spots in my hair and generally encouraging me in all of my plans and goals. In short, she supported me no matter how daft the idea was and I therefore know that she will be rooting for me every step of every run.

Thanks for reading,

Alistair/Ally/Al

Instagram: @marie_curie_marathons