From Injury to Triumph: Oli’s Inspiring London Marathon Journey

Congratulations to Oli, who ran the London Marathon in support of FitzRoy and managed to raise £1,505.

Oli chose to run for FitzRoy because we support his aunt.  Due to the pandemic and his aunt moving house, he hadn’t seen her for quite some time. However, he went to visit and celebrate her birthday in February and was impressed by the excellent facilities and staff at our care home in East Sussex. His visit inspired him to help transform lives by raising money for FitzRoy.

Oli said: “We had a really lovely afternoon, we played some music for her and celebrated her birthday. Obviously, it was a special trip in the first place but I was just so impressed with the facilities and the staff. It was such a lovely atmosphere. I came away so impressed and I wanted to help continue that. It was such a well-run house and I just thought long may it continue!

“All the training for the marathon had been going really well but three or four weeks before the marathon, and the day after I’d set up all my fundraising pages, I had a really bad training run where the tissue in my thigh (IT band) flared up. I could barely walk! It was really touch and go for a while about whether I was going to be able to run the marathon.

“I was really lucky to have a lot of great support around me, my personal trainer at the gym and my marathon coach from a few years ago were both really helpful. Because of the injury, I wasn’t quite at optimum fitness when it came to running the marathon and I was really nervous about getting a flare-up on the day but my legs played ball and got me around the course, with pretty much no problems whatsoever!

It was one of the most amazing experiences.

“In the week leading up to the marathon, I was losing a bit of sleep because I was so worried which was awful, but it was completely worth it. Now having done the event I would take a week of worrying and lack of sleep for how good it actually was on the day.

“Reaching about mile 23 and realising you’re actually going to finish the race was a major highlight for me. My wife had planned for friends and family to meet me at the end so that was a lovely surprise at the finish line too!

“However, the most memorable aspect for me was the overwhelming support from the spectators. The number of people there to support and cheer you on around the whole track, despite the rain that morning, was just incredible, I’ll never forget that.

It was an honour to run it for FitzRoy and thank you so much to the team for all the support, you’ve been great. I’m so pleased with the amount raised, it’s surpassed all my expectations. I’m so happy they will go towards something useful and help FitzRoy to continue doing such amazing work.

A huge thank you to our Marathon runners Oli and Keith, as well as all our fundraisers who have raised thousands of pounds this year in support of our work.