On May 26, our heroes in green were out in force running the Edinburgh Marathon to raise money for us. Below are the stories of two of our runners, Kate Guest and Daniel Thornton…
Name: Kate Guest Age: 26
Job: MSc student, Ecotourism Marathon time: Four hours, 27 minutes, 19 seconds
Raised: £536
Edinburgh was Kate’s first marathon, and she described training for it as ‘surprisingly OK… I followed a great training plan and managed to avoid a lot of the snowy/rainy weather in Scotland by sheer chance, so the process was not as gruelling as it could have been.’
But she admitted the weather on the day of the race made the experience slightly more difficult than she’d hoped.
She said: ‘It was actually uncomfortably warm and so from the beginning it was quite tough. The atmosphere was great and the residents of the areas we ran through certainly helped us along the way, setting up sprinklers to keep runners cool and handing out endless supplies of jellybabies.
‘The last 6 miles were incredibly tough and I think relief was the first emotion to hit me as I crossed the finish line, later followed by disbelief and joy.
'It was a fantastic day, and I'm happy to have had the opportunity to run for Renewable World. I think they work they do is incredibly important and wanted to raise both funds and awareness for the charity.’
You can still donate at Kate’s justgiving page
Name: Daniel Thornton Age: 32
Job: Software Developer/Bioinformatician Marathon Time: Three hours, 10 minutes, 51 seconds
Raised: £470
Despite completing the marathon in just over three hours, Daniel believes he could have been even faster: ‘My training was good,’ he said: ‘I tried not to get injured so I trained moderately. Perhaps a bit more will get me under three hours at some point. I died in the last few miles of this race, as just wasn't ready for sub-three hour pace.’
Daniel found us after looking through the list of affiliated charities on the Edinburgh Marathon website.
He said: ‘I decided to do it for Renewable World as I'm quite into sparing the environment as much as possible.
‘I prefer charities that don't market too much and put more time into the actual cause. Some of the bigger charities send too much paperwork etc. and have a lot of collateral (including giving competitors massages and food at the end of these races), which for me just takes away from the charities resources and the cause we're trying to help!.’
You can still donate at Daniel’s justgiving page: