Hi! First of all I want to give you a warm thank you for visiting my fundraiser. The fact that you have found me means a lot to me. As you probably know this page is about raising money for sick children in hospitals, especially for those suffering from cancer, leukaemia etc. I will not just raise money but challenge myself by running a marathon in a relative short period of time : in 50 days from now I will prepare myself from being a rookie into running my first marathon, over more I want to finish within 3 hours and 30 mins, or 12 km/h average.
1. MY BACKGROUND
Hi! Let me shortly introduce myself.
My name is Giovanni, I live in Belgium. Today I am 36 years old and I am preparing a personal challenge. Let me explain you first the reason why I do this challenge.
When I was six I was playing with my parents. Suddenly everything went black and I fell on the ground. My parents knew something bad happened, they jumped in the car and rushed to hospital. Their feeling was right : I had the combination of meningitis and a head tumor. It took me three months of intensive care in hospital in order to get over the disease.
After I was cured I had regular checkups until I was twelve. Between age seven and twelve recovery was slow, I had a lot of problems in school. I couldn’t follow the normal classes and I still don’t remember anything from that period.
During secundairy things got better. My life became the life of a normal teenager, my school marks went up and I made it to university. Two university grades later I started working in Yara International, I have a girlfriend and two children (3 and 9 years old) living by my side.
If it wasn’t because of the prompt action of my parents I wouldn’t have been here anymore. I owe them my life, twice. Today, thirty years later, I realize I was lucky. Therefore I decided I want to do something in return, get out of that sofa and challenge myself for the better cause. You can read about this challenge in details below.
2. THE PURPOSE / GOAL
Every now and then we all see this in media : kids having cancer, being sick, suffering from diseases and fighting against better will in hospital. I have been there as well and know what it is. Sometimes it is hard to see things positive. Both children and parents get lost in battle, especially when things get worse or the curing process gets stretched. In these times it feels so good to receive special attention, how small this might be.
The goal of my challenge is to raise money and bring some small attentions to children and parents whom are in need. We will visit children in the cancer department of the hospital and give presents :
– Children will receive a teddybear
– Moms/Parents will receive a white rose
The more money I raise, the more children I can visit. Stories will be told and those will be written in my blog after the event. There are many ways to personalize your support, you can read all about it further below.
3. THE CHALLENGE
This is the big challenge:
– As a non-runner (*) I will run my first complete Marathon
– The maximum time to complete the marathon is set to 3H30, which is an average speed of 12km/h
– I only have nine weeks time to prepare from scratch to hero.
Since I don’t really know anything about long distance running I can rely on the good advise of a good friend of mine : Patrick Dermul is an ex-para commando and an excellent runner : he won about 160 races and his record on the marathon is 2H41 mins!
During the training sessions I use a Polar V800 heart rate monitor (and sometimes Strava). Right after training the sessions are loaded in a training dashboard and will be published on this blog. This way you can follow my daily activities and experiences, feel free to like and comment them whenever you want to!
The idea for doing this challenge is to raise money for the good purpose, you can read all about how you support me in the next section.
(*) Definition of a non-runner : Last time I did a run was a couple of months ago. Together with my girlfriend I usually run 5km in a half hour. I never really was into running since I am more the cyclist type.
4. FUNDRAISING AND REWARDS
The initial goal is to raise 1050 euro. Which would be 25 euro per km I do on the marathon run! This would also be the equivalent of 4O presents to different children. I have put a stretched goal of 4200 euro which would be 100 euro per km! Of course the more money I raise the more money will be going to several hospitals around the country. The plan with the dates for the hospital visits will be published on my blog, after I have more insight in the amount which will be raised. I really hope you can find your heart in my initiative and we can work together for the dream.
Payment options : You can sponsor me through Paypal or by bank card/visa which is covered by a secured connection through Stripe. For family / work related sponsoring you can personally contact me.
5. FAMOUS LAST WORDS
I can only thank you for reading the full story. Please visit my blog www.mychallenge.support and join me in my trip to reach the ultimate goal!