Hello and thank you for visiting my fundraising page.

I’m running the 2019 LA Marathon to raise money for my amazing little mate Freddie Hales who has Grade 3 Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy, which causes him to have severe bilateral dystonic Cerebral Palsy as a result of complications during his birth.

I have always wanted to run a marathon and after attending the 2018 London Marathon in support of Freddie’s dad’s cousin Jamie Miles I came away very inspired from the whole event. It was a fantastic, positive and memorable day and it was great to be able to support Jamie while he was raising lots of money for Fred.

As soon as I could, I signed up for the ballot for the 2019 London Marathon and in October I found out I had sadly not got a place, so I started looking for alternatives. I looked into the Brighton and Edinburgh marathons and then my girlfriend Lauren pointed out to me, as if by fate, that the LA Marathon was happening while we were all in the city next year.  We are there with Freddie and his family while Freddie is undergoing intensive therapy at NAPA (https://www.napacenter.org). So I immediately put my name down for the LA Marathon, and on March 24th 2019 I’ll be running 26.2 miles to help raise money for Freddie Hales. I have never done anything as challenging as this in my life before, so wish me luck!

If you have found your way to this page, there is a big chance I have already told you all about Freddie, but if not, please visit http://freddiesstory.com. That is Freddie’s own website which tells you all you need to know as to why I am raising money for such a wonderful little man.

As you may have noticed, the charity I am raising money for is called ‘Tree Of Hope’. Tree Of Hope are a fantastic charity who enable family members of children with disabilities to create a fund for the child. This means that the money I will raise will go straight to Tree Of Hope and that money will be kept in a fund only to be used for Freddie’s treatment and care. You can visit Freddie’s Fund Page here and learn all about Tree Of Hope: https://www.treeofhope.org.uk/freddiesphysio

If you would like to follow my progress as I train for the marathon, please follow me on Instagram: @mitch_athon.

Thank you very much.