Posted by Sean Connelly on August 28, 2019, 3:23 pm Sean Connelly
Hi everyone,
Most of you will have guessed already when you saw the title of this post.....yep, Louise & I are about to embark on our 19th Great North Run and for the 19th time we will be hoping to raise money for another worthy cause and this year we're fundraising for Histio UK.
Why? Because Louise's friend has an amazing son called Jack who is currently fighting a battle with a rare auto immune blood cancer, LCH.
In 2014, at the age of just 3 Jack was admitted to hospital after a period of weight loss, loss of appetite and fatigue. After a variety of tests were carried out Jack was diagnosed with a rare auto immune cancer of the blood called Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis and successfully undertook 12 months of chemotherapy and steroid treatment.
Jack continued to be under review but in February 2018 the family received the devastating news that he had relapsed with three new lesions. He is currently undertaking a second line of chemotherapy and steroid treatment.
Histio UK is a British charity whose objective is to provide the relief of sickness and preservation of good health among patients affected by histiocytic diseases, their families and carers. Also to improve protocols for patient management and ultimately put measures in place for prevention of histiocytic diseases.
With your kind generosity we want to help Jack, his family and others like them, so please donate now here :- Sean & Louise GNR19
You’re probably all wondering, will they ever stop? Well Louise likes nice even numbers so maybe next year when it’s number 20 then that would be a good number to stop on......maybe
To be serious for one moment, we both truly appreciate the support we get from you and everyone else year on year. Together we have all made a difference, we hope we can continue to do for as long as we’re able.
We had a great weekend and Louise achieved probably her third fastest time (02:01:51) showing her that when she puts the training in it does pay dividends I have probably done too much training what with all the miles I've run this year and it wasn't my day. After such a big improvement last year I slipped up by a good 3 minutes to only manage 1:35:02 But it was a glorious day with sunshine & blue skies though we both caught the sun a bit too much!
Still very humbling being there with all those other runners hoping to raise money for charity. I think they said that on that one day they expect about £13 million in total to be raised. Like to think that with all the support we've had over the last 19 years we've been doing our bit so on behalf of all the charities and runners thank you for supporting us
It was also slightly sad in that we have stayed in the same B&B for the last 19 years that we have done the GNR but the current owner Sally has after 10 years decided to retire properly. She has sold the B&B but it’s to become a private house again but she stayed open for one last weekend to ensure that we had a place to stay for our GNR and yesterday she cooked us our last breakfasts Luckily us and another couple that have also stayed there a number of years now have managed to get rooms in the only remaining B&B in Tynemouth for next year’s race. So that’s hopefully another 19 years sorted now
Hopefully we will get our JustGiving page updated with some photos from the run today.
Thank you to all our supporters for helping making it all a great success.
Kind regards
Sean & Louise
P.S. It's never too late to help make a difference.....our JustGiving web page will be open for a while yet so please if you can donate now no matter how big or small, it is all very much appreciated.
Luckily us and another couple that have also stayed there a number of years now have managed to get rooms in the only remaining B&B in Tynemouth for next year’s race. So that’s hopefully another 19 years sorted now