Sarah Nichol, better known to Bristol hashers as Kerbcrawler, has raised over £5000.00 for Cancer Research UK by running in the 2003 London Marathon.

Inspired by the death of Dave Iles, (Public Enema to hashers) due to cancer, in 2001, she first had the idea of running the London Marathon about a year ago:

"I felt I really needed to do something after what happened to Dave. So I contacted Cancer Research about getting a place in the marathon through them. They told me that to get one of their Golden Bond places I had to raise a minimum of £2000.00 in sponsorship, but I reckoned I could do it.

"I have had a really amazing response from everybody, and can never thank everyone enough. I sent out an email at work, explaining why I was running, and people whom I had never spoken to before came up and offered to sponsor me. All the hashers I have approached, even though they all gave money to the Oncology Centre last year, have still been willing to contribute. TACH have been brilliant, making Cancer Research the club's official charity for the year, as well as all supporting me individually. I have also had contributions from my own family and friends, from Dave's family, and also from Dave's rugby and basketball teams.

"It was my first marathon. My training was a disaster from the beginning. On a run in January, I developed achilles tendonitis, which put me out of action for a month. My physio gave me orthotics to sort out the tendonitis, but they ended up causing me shin-splints, which were a lot more painful than the tendonitis! In the two months before the marathon, I was only able to do three training runs. But there were a couple of times when I though I wasn't going to be able to run it at all, so I'm very relieved that I was fit enough to get round it in the end.

"As for the marathon itself I ran it in 4 hrs 15 mins and I'm chuffed to bits! It went a lot better than I expected, especially after all my injuries. The first ten miles went by quite quickly, miles 10-13 were harder-going, but getting over halfway felt good, and then I just took it mile by mile. By mile 18 I was tiring, and from mile 20 onwards the miles just seemed to get longer and longer. We also had a few hundred yards of cobbles to run over about mile 23, which was agony on the wee feet by that point. But I managed to speed up during the last mile, and then do something vaguely resembling a sprint finish at the end. I'm definitely very glad I did it, but I'm also relieved that it's over now.

"The main thing is, I ran this marathon for Dave. I wanted to do it to raise money for cancer research, but also as a tribute to Dave and his extraordinary bravery throughout the time he was ill."

To date, Sarah has raised more than double her target, the figure at the beginning of June 2003 being £4108.00, which, when tax has been reclaimed via the Gift Aid scheme, should bring the final amount to over £5000.00.

We would all like to congratulate Sarah on her remarkable and moving achievement.