Run for Refugees Team raise £4,000 at The Chichester Half

19/10/2018

On Sunday October 7th 2018, we held the seventh annual Children on the Edge Chichester Half Marathon, raising a fantastic £21,000 for our work with vulnerable children around the world.

Over £4,000 of this was raised by a fantastic group of 27 runners who were all part of this year’s Run for Refugees Team. All 27 team members committed to raise a minimum of £100 each for our work with refugee children in Bangladesh and Lebanon.

Mother and daughter team, Michele and Tiki (pictured above) were part of these fundraising efforts and talked to us about how they got support in the run up to the race. On the day they were kitted out in their ‘Run for Refugees’ t-shirts, complete with matching tutus.

Here are some of Tiki’s comments describing their experience of this year’s Chichester Half:

“I was really quite nervous on the morning of the race, training in the last couple weeks had done a bit awry as I had been unwell…Mum was also a bit nervous as she knew what was ahead of us having completed last years race as well!

The pre run warm up was really good fun, gave us a giggle and got us warm and ready to go. Then it was onto the line up, where we chatted to a lovely lady and then we were off. The first part through town was slow as planned, saving our legs for the hill. We had our pace aims which I had plotted for us and we were on target as we started to climb, from here on out we ran our own races, just because I happened to be going slightly faster than mum.

We both felt great when we got to the top of the Trundle, we managed it better than our training run! The second half of the race for me was mentally challenging, I was starting to feel tired and I tripped over my own feet at one point which was annoying but my husband managed to text me at just the right time and I ran the last mile and a half feeling strong and happy.

Mum came in just after me with a big smile on her face and feeling great. She knocked 10 minutes off last year’s time and felt she still had a bit in her. We got our times from the machine straight away which is lovely, as I called my hubby and he was super proud of me. Then we went over to the VIP tent (a perk for Run for Refugees runners!) to enjoy the snacking delights Children on the Edge had lined up for runners - nice touch!

The support we received from Children on the Edge was amazing and really helped to make the whole experience more fun and meaningful. We’ve both done events for other charities, with much larger fundraising targets, and not felt nearly as supported or as valued as everyone has made us feel running for you so thank you all.”

We’re incredibly grateful to all our Run for Refugees runners who, in addition to Tiki and Michele include Chris and team from Bowers and Wilkins, Georgia and team from Montezuma’s Chocolates, Samuel, Kelly, Tony, Jeremy, Thomas, Stephen and Derek.