A quick reminder what the London Marathon is all about – raising money for charity.  It is probably the biggest running event in the world, is definitely the biggest fund raising event in the world and has raised over £450 million for a range of great causes since 1981.  That’s an amazing amount of money raised for good causes.  Participants raise around £50 million in each event every year now and over 75% of the people running are doing it for charity.

These are some pretty amazing facts and really add to the experience on the day.  Running with over 36,000 other people (and this number grows every year), some in fancy dress, some out to break world records, with professional athletes and with the best crowd and city sights in the world to see, is nothing short of an awesome experience.

Whilst I’m not doing it in fancy dress, I’m still aiming to raise as much money as possible for Whizz-Kidz, through donations from friends, family and others who are kind enough to donate to this good cause, Christmas carol singing with the guys from Whizz-Kidz, a karate club kickathon (everyone doing as many kicks as they can in 2 hours with prizes for the ones doing the most and the best techniques) and more.

Some really important facts about what Whizz-Kidz do are below:

• There are 70,000 disabled kids in the UK waiting for the right wheelchair.  In some cases kids as old as nine are still being pushed around in a toddler’s buggy simply because they do not have timely access to the equipment they need.

• It costs on average 3 times as much to raise a disabled child as a non-disabled child and Whizz-Kidz will provide 1,200 wheelchairs and adapted trikes this year.

• Disabled young people are over twice as likely as their non-disabled peers not to be in education, employment or training.  Whizz-Kidz will provide over 100 work placements this year.

• Whizz-Kidz will deliver Wheelchair Skills Training to over 700 disabled kids this year.

The money we raise for them goes to helping all these children live much more active lives – something we all take for granted.

So how can you help?  One donation is all it takes.  A big big thank you to everyone who’s made a donation so far.  If you’d like to make a donation just go to http://www.justgiving.com/jasonnoble1 and follow the instructions.

You can also make a guess at how long it will take me to finish and be in with the chance of winning a bottle of bubbly.  To make a guess go to my Guessability page.

And of course if you’d prefer to donate with good old fashioned cash or a cheque, let me know and I’ll give you details on how to get it to me.

My fund raising target is an ambitious £3,000 and I need your help to get there!

Next post about running this week…