Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page.  You'll probably be wondering how it is that two pretty unlikely runners have ended up running the London Marathon.  We're kind of wondering the same.  About a week before the 2009 marathon, James said to Bethany, "You know how we gave up meat for Lent?".  "Ye-es," said Bethany, dubiously.  James went on, "And it was a really silly idea but we did it anyway".  "Ye-es," came the response.  "Well next year, why don't we run the London Marathon instead?"  The end of that conversation was a stern, "We'll see". 

Fast forward 6 months and we were beginning our training.  Another couple of months later and we had been racking up the miles every week.  We had both been running for a while , but neither of us had done any races longer than 10k before, so we had a bit of a mountain to climb before the marathon - our first racing challenge of this campaign was the Sussex Beacon Half Marathon on 21 February, which we both got round in one piece, in spite of the hail, wind, rain and cold and on 14 March we ran all the way from Nottingham to Derby in the world's first Kilomathon (26.2km - the same number of kilometres as there are miles in a marathon). 

On 25 April, both of us managed to haul ourselves around the London Marathon course.  It took us a bit longer than we had hoped, but we got there in the end!

We chose to run for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People because it is a charity that ticks all our boxes - we thought long and hard about who we wanted to support, and Hearing Dogs came out on top because they help both people and animals.  When we ask people what they know about Hearing Dogs, most are aware that they exist and think "they're like guide dogs only for deaf people".  Very few realise, however, that the charity gets most of its dogs from rescue centres, thereby giving our furry friends a second chance of a happy life.  In addition to the practical things that a Hearing Dog can help with (such as alerting its human friend to fire alarms, door bells, alarm clocks and intruders), it can give a deaf person the confidence to live an independent life and raise awareness that the person on the end of the lead is in fact deaf - a huge problem that deaf people face as a result of their invisible disability is people pushing them out of the way when they don't respond to "excuse me" - having a Hearing Dog dressed in its burgundy coat can really help to eliminate this issue!

We would really like to raise £5,000 (though it seems like a huge target now) as this is the amount needed to offer complete partnership support to a dog and its recipient throughout the life of the dog - please help us to reach our goal!

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - We raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.