Summer and Rachel’s Bucket List Run

By Shawna McGuire

Strode Park Foundation’s very own Fundraising and Communications Assistant Summer Lee will be running this year’s London Landmarks Half Marathon on April 3.

Summer, 23, will be accompanied by her friend Rachel Christie, to take part in the 13 mile course.

This is Summer’s first time running any type of marathon. She said: “I’ve never taken part in a run on this scale, other than the odd run when I was small, so it has been a bit of a shock to the system with training, but it has always been on my bucket list.”

The pair, from Sheerness, thought this would be a good steppingstone towards running a full marathon in the future.

Rachel also wanted to run this year. She said: “I decided to run the LLHM because I wanted to challenge myself doing something brand new. Being able to support a local foundation like Strode Park is a plus!”

Summer who has worked for Strode for two years, has seen the wonderful work they do first-hand and wanted to support this any way she could. She’s been inspired to run this race to raise money for the charity she works for. She added: “I went to the London Landmark Half Marathon last year to cheer on the runners for Strode and I loved the atmosphere and feel of the day. It really motivated me to do it myself.”

Rachel and Summer, who have been friends for 12 years, have been training together for this race as well as having a joint fundraiser.

Summer is working hard for this marathon saying that her and Rachel “still have a long way to go but we are confident we will get there… even if we are dragging ourselves across the finish line.”

She is hoping to complete the run in 2 hours and 30 minutes but is aiming for 2 hours and 10 minutes.

So far, the duo have raised over £800. Donations can be made at:  http://www.justgiving.com/Rachel-Christie6