Tewkesbury Half Marathon Review

Team health&Hustle had a small team who entered the Tewkesbury Half marathon on Sunday 15 May 2022.  This event followed on from early morning training sessions, where the group met on Monday and Wednesday mornings at 6:30am to complete a minimum of 10-15km runs before going to work.  Within the group everyone was representing a charity or just running in support of each other.  Rain, snow and every season was experienced, along with sunrises or foggy days on the Gloucester canal during the training sessions, however the dedication from everyone taking part was outstanding and in true team spirit we all ran supporting each other, no matter what our individual ability was.  During the process Nigel turned 70 years old in March and completed his Half Marathon challenge in the Forest of Dean, whilst Rob and Gary trained for the Tewkesbury half marathon.

Rob Blagden - Rob is running for Polycystic Kidney Disease who is raising funds following his kidney transplant, where he had both kidneys removed in 2014/15 and survived on dialysis 5 times a week, until he got a call in September 2015 for his transplant.  You can read more about Robs journey on his blog https://kidneytransplantblog.blogspot.com/?m=1 and if you would like to donate to his just giving page, this is the link https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Robs-Kidney-Half 

Gary Singh - Gary is raising funds for the Mental Health Charity for Swindon and Gloucestershire Mind, because It’s time to make a difference https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/gary-singh2 Gary has seen first hand experience the impact mental health has on family.  Tragically, Gary lost his brother in a road traffic accident and through his bereavement and support of Bill and and his Mum Prob, wanted to run the marathon in honour of his brother Vijay.  Since his achievements, Gary only started running last year and completed the couch and 10km programme.  He is taking part in the run leader training to support the group and offer peer support from his experience.

With over 1,700 taking part in the marathon we also met up with Laura Harvey, Johanna Bogle, Neil Penny and Julie Hapeshi at the start and even along the 13 miles we bumped into other friends of the Health&Hustle.  The course was a challenge and it took its toll on some of the runners who were taken off by ambulance due to the conditions which were hot, so the rain at the end was much welcomed by everyone crossing the finishing line.  What was amazing on the day was the support from the locals was amazing but a big shout out to the crew who came along to cheer at the start and be there at the end to witness these incredible achievements.

What’s next? We have all signed up for the Gloucester and Cheltenham 10km and hope the team will grow and attract some of the latest graduates from the Couch course.  If anyone wants to run with us, you are more than welcome, as we run as a team and run at the slowest members pace.  Our aim is to start and finish, so time is not the driver and you will have a run leader with you all of the way.