Our founder’s sister and her fiancé Mark will bring a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘tying the knot’ when they attempt to run a three-legged half marathon next month to raise funds for our work.
Ahead of their nuptials next year, Katharine and Mark, both 29, will be joined at the ankle for the 13.1mile Royal Parks Half Marathon on Sunday 8th October and are aiming to raise at least £10,000 to make the extreme challenge worthwhile.
The couple, who are both reinsurance brokers at Aon and divide their time between London and New York, are regular runners and gym-goers but the longest they have so far run as a three-legged pair is ‘just’ 3 miles. However, they are aiming to complete the run in under two and a half hours.
Katharine spoke to us about why they chose to attempt a three-legged half marathon and to give us an update on their training:
“Mark ran the New York Marathon recently and I ran the Edinburgh half marathon a few years ago so we felt we needed to add to the challenge of running a half marathon to encourage as many donations as possible for African Promise.”
“We decided that a three-legged half marathon would definitely be a worthwhile challenge, and given African Promise’s primary role is working with schools in rural Kenya, we have also decided to run wearing colouring pencil costumes!”
“We have been training separately over the last few months and finally did our first three-legged run recently in New York. We did get some strange looks (which surprised us somewhat given the bizarre sights you often see in the city) but we managed to complete the session without falling over and without falling out!”
We would like to wish Kat and Dickie (as they are more commonly known) the very best of luck and we look forward to cheering them on around the course. If you would like to support the couple with donations and messages of encouragement please visit their fundraising page at www.justgiving.com/katharinedickie