Laura Homeyard - Chester Half Marathon
Laura ran for the Chester Half Marathon and raised £695 for the Trust. She details her training experience and the big day below:
"I suppose it started out a few years ago when I decided to do a sponsored 2 mile swim on my own to try and raise some money to go towards some new equipment for a cancer ward in a local hospital as one of my best friends found out his father had cancer. After the swim was successful and I had manage to raise over £400, I started to think about giving a helping hand closer to home.
When I was 12, my father became very very ill. It wasn't until two (very long and traumatic!) years later that Dad was properly diagnosed with Autoimmune Hepatitis (AIH), a severe form of liver disease.
He was the first man in Norfolk to suffer with the condition, hence the reason why the diagnosis took so long. Throughout this tough period of our lives, the British Liver Trust was very supportive and informative, which helped shed some light on exactly what was going on.
Remarkably, Dad responded well to the treatment and is now a member of the Trust. As the condition is relatively unknown, Dad gets invited to go to meetings and support groups, as well as various clinics and hospitals to give talks on the disease to try and educate people about AIH.
Therefore, I thought it was about time to try and give a little back to the Trust and maybe try and help people in similar situations like my Dad and all our family.
Earlier this year, I completed the Chester Half Marathon, a 13.1 mile course aroung the Cheshire countryside. As this was my first Half Marathon, I didn't quite know what to expect or how to train exactly, so I equipped myself with some decent running shoes and spent most of my time racking up laps of the City Walls and also training in the gym, catching up on the Hollyoaks omnibus in the process!! I'm not going to lie to you, my motivation to train past the 8 mile mark dwindled some-what, especially as I unleashed old injuries as well as picking up new ones, but on the whole, it was an thoroughably enjoyable experience and I got there in the end. On the day, I managed to finish the course in 2:25:36, in 1722nd place out of around 2500 competitors, complete with ever-so-painful shin splints and raising £700 in donations plus another £100 in Gift Aid in the process!!
An unexpected bonus from my run was that back home, a local charity club called the Swaffham Lions had got intouch with my family. They had never heard of Dad's condition before and so invited the pair of us out to a Sunday lunch. Unfortunately I could not attend but my father went along and gave a talk on the disease as well as the Trust and all the good it does.
After hearing all this, they decided to include the British Liver Trust as one of their recognised charities and donated £250 to the Trust!!!
Not bad for a day's hard slog and a fancy free dinner hey?! If there's one thing for sure, I'm definately going to do it again!"