Two ultra marathons, three marathons, one week!

Mark said: "In April and May next year, I will be undertaking a running challenge to raise funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital."

Last year, his brother and partner had a beautiful baby girl named Summer. After a traumatic labour at University College London Hospitals (UCLH), Summer was not breathing when she was born and was immediately taken to an intensive care unit.

After being stabilised, doctors and the medical team confirmed that she was born with Pierre Robin Syndrome, which affects less than 2,000 new born children in the UK every year.

With this news, Summer was moved to Great Ormond Street Hospital, where the medical team looked after her for the first three months of her life.

Summer struggled to breath, requiring a tube in one nostril to help her airways and a second tube in her other nostril to act as a feeding tube to ensure she could eat. The medical team spent time teaching my brother and his partner how to change the tubes and clean them in preparation for allowing Summer to go home, whilst also providing guidance, reassurance and care to two very worried parents.

After three months in Great Ormond Street, Summer was allowed to return home.

In the next 12 months, Summer had weekly appointments at Great Ormond Street to check on her progress whilst having many more unplanned trips due to breathing or feeding problems. Summer has now been fully discharged and this wouldn’t have happened without the wonderful work of all of the staff at Great Ormond Street, who showed huge levels of patience, kindness and care throughout.

Mark added: " I will be running 3 marathons and 2 ultra-marathons in 4 weeks to raise vital funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital as a means of saying thank you for all their support with Summers first year of life.

The races he will be doing are as follows:

Sunday 14th April 2019 – Brighton Marathon (26.2 miles)

Saturday 20th April 2019 – A marathon around the track, by myself, at Stoke Mandeville Stadium (26.2 miles)

Sunday 28th April 2019 – London Marathon (26.2 miles)

Saturday 4th May 2019 and Sunday 5th May 2019 – Isle of Wight Challenge (32.5 miles on day one, 35 miles on day 2)

Mark is looking for local businesses to support his effort via sponsorship of his running tops that he will wear during the races, and throughout training.

Mark said: "I am looking for a minimum donation of £100 that will go towards my fundraising. In return, I will wear your logo on my running tops during training and races, as well as on during any PR I plan to raise awareness for my effort. 100% of this donation will go to the Great Ormond Street Hospital and would be paid direct to my Virgin Money Giving fundraising page. I would require a .jpg of your logo in order to have this printed on my tops in January. The link to my fundraising page can be found here;

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MarkGrieves4'‹