Meet the Marathon runners!

Gregor McLachlan

Gregor ran the London Marathon this weekend in a fantastic time! He was looking forward to participating ‘it’s such an iconic city, I love to walk around it so can’t wait to run the streets’.  This will be Gregor’s 5th marathon so he has the experience but training is still tough. He describes the worst part of training as “The long training runs when you get up to 20 miles, there is no crowd and no atmosphere, it feels like you are just pounding the streets on your own.” After navigating his way back out of London and back home to Birmingham Gregor will probably celebrate with a nice cold beer. When we asked Gregor why he is running for us he told us - 

“I’ve known about the work of When You Wish Upon a Star for a number of years from a family member, so when the opportunity came up to run for them I just had to grab it, a great cause helping those who are less fortunate than myself.  The opportunity to raise money and to run the 
iconic streets was not something that I could let go.” 

Jennie McDermott

‘I am very excited about the race and cannot wait to realise my lifelong dream to run in the London Marathon, I feel very lucky as many have tried and not been able to get a place for years. I have run a marathon before, last year. I was supposed to do the London Marathon but because of Covid we all had to do it virtually. I ran from Largs to Irvine in North Ayrshire and covered the 26.2 miles. It was an unbelievable experience and really showed me what I could do if I put my mind to it! The night before a long run I normally eat chicken or fish, rice and salad. On the morning of the run I'll have porridge a few hours before hand. The worst part about the training has been having to put running before spending time with my Husband and 3 children and sacrificing quite a few things to run. Even although running is a huge part of my life it's hard to put it before your family. I will celebrate with my family after the run and go out for dinner and just feel proud and amazed at what I've achieved. I wanted to run for When You Wish Upon a Star to make children's wishes come true. I've got 3 children and couldn't imagine if one of them had a serious illness so anything I can do to help these children I will. To raise money to help these families make special memories or give a child an iPad to be able to speak with family and friends while they are in hospital is totally worth all the training and hard work and I'd do it all again in a heartbeat for them.

I'm also running in memory of my much loved and special friend, Catherine Anderson , who sadly lost her battle with breast cancer  in June 2021.  She was so excited that I was running the marathon and was my biggest supporter. She will be with me the whole way round the 26.2 mile course and I will be flying the flag for our group Catherine's Wheels which is made up of all her friends and family and is the name of  fund we set up to raise money for her treatment’

Debbie & Stephen – @thetynefoodies

Debbie & Stephen will be running and walking the Virtual London Marathon around the some city of Newcastle. It’s their first full marathon but they recently completed the Great North Run. They said - ‘we are both amateur runners, but usually run for 10 km at the most. We think that the most difficult part of training is squeezing it into our busy schedule. We are both big foodies so definitely getting a nice meal after and we are treating ourselves to the cinema the next day to see the new James Bond film. After seeing an Instagram post we decided doing the London Marathon virtually seems like a good opportunity for Newbie runners, where there is no pressure to finish at a certain time’

Poppi Dickens

Poppi took part in the Virtual London Marathon with friends Cara and Liv joining her at different sections. This isn’t her first marathon after running York in 2018 and is very excited. After the run she will be celebrating with a roast dinner. Poppi took on this challenge to have something challenging and fun to do after University and to raise money for our wonderful charity.