Welcome to Every Single Step         

 

As many of you know, in April I completed the London Marathon successfully (success meaning getting round 26.2 miles, raising money and experiencing a wonderful outpouring of generosity of spirit from friends around the world).  It was never my intention to ask you to support another endeavour this year.  But our lives aren’t all about plans, and so I’m letting you know about #everysinglestep15 campaign – based around a 100km (62 miles in old money) run I’ll be attempting on 12^th September, supporting another small, volunteer led charity – Be Child Cancer Aware.

 Be Child Cancer Aware (http://www.bechildcanceraware.org/) has been chosen very specifically.  BCCA is dedicated to raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of all Cancers affecting children and teenagers and are also sole sponsors of the Beads of Courage programme in UK hospitals.   This programme provide beads of all shapes and colours to over 4000 children in 74 UK hospitals, including St George’s and the Marsden. It’s designed to support children going through their treatment by allowing them to tell their story using colourful beads. The beads are used as meaningful symbols of courage that commemorate different milestones such as blood transfusions, hospital stays, and the many treatments children will face – in fact every single step along the way.

My friends have told me about their beads, and just how much they have helped them so far – and this is why they will be the focal point of this effort.  Some of what we raise will specifically go to supporting the Beads of Courage programme at St George’s, with the rest being used to support BCCA’s overall aims including their forthcoming evaluation of the UK Beads programme.  I spoke with one of the charity’s founders – it was a very humbling half an hour, and I look forward to supporting them this summer.

 All told, this is a pretty significant challenge (going from 10k to 100k in about 75 days on a still dodgy right foot) – but it doesn’t compare with what families go through when a child is diagnosed with cancer or another serious illness.  I know one thing – I will not be able to do this without the support of my friends and family.  ‘Support’ can hopefully be financial, but also, for example – I need some company on some training runs.  I’ll be sharing some opportunities for lots of people to join in over the next month or so but I have no monopoly on good ideas.  I know that some friends are also thinking about ways to show your support for Joshua and his family – it would be great to integrate all of this.  I know we can do this, as I am fortunate to know many, many amazing people.

Thank you for reading this.  We are going to smash this.

Love Fitchy

#everysinglestep15