Fran Brown, our Marketing Manager, and Lynne Hall our Management Accountant wete stepping up for a charity challenge by running the Virgin Money London Marathon on April 26. However the postponement of the event to Sunday 4th October hasn’t deterred them!
They are running for the Community Sports Foundation, Norwich City FC’s official charity partner, and our chosen charity.
Also running for CSF’s #BuildTheNest campaign is former Canaries favourite Simon Lappin who is football development officer on the foundation’s football and education programme.
Fran was set a target of raising £1,850 – that’s just over £70 for every mile of the famous 26.2-mile route round the capital. She will be running with colleague Lynne Hall, who ran the London Marathon last year. Despite receiving a ballot place again this year, Lynne will also be running for the Community Sports Foundation.
Already Fran has had sizeable pledges from the MINI Challenge and UNI-Virtuosi Racing, both of which Credo partners through its passion and support for motorsport, which are buying space on her running vest.
Lynne started running 10 years ago with a couch to 5k programme as a way to keep fit in her 40’s, and Fran took up running just before her 40th birthday 6 years ago.
“I started off just doing a mile or two, running in the forest, with some other mums from school. It was an opportunity to get together and get some exercise.” Fran said.
She did a couple of 5k Park Runs and then entered her first 10k, the Wymondham New Year’s Day race, three years ago. She did the Norwich 10k the following year and again 12 months later.
Last year she ran her first half-marathon at Cambridge in one hour, 59 minutes and 53 seconds. She also did runDisney around the theme parks near Paris, complete with Minnie Mouse ears, but that was more about having fun than PBs!
“I have always been in awe of people who have done the London Marathon. I think it is an amazing thing.”
“I want to do it in under five hours but I don’t want to put myself under pressure,” said Fran. “I want to finish and enjoy it.
“The training is going okay. I have managed to complete 15 miles so far and am now upping my runs to 18 miles.”
Lynne commented..”The experience of the marathon last year was simply one of the best things I had ever done, whilst the training was the probably one of the worst”
On a bit of a high I decided to try again for the ballot, not really expecting that I would be lucky enough to get in……….and what do you know – I did!!!
The Community Sports Foundation is a cause close to our heart with Credo helping to raise money for its Build the Nest project, a new multi-purpose community hub in Holt Road, Horsford.
When the foundation was allocated two charity places in the London Marathon it offered one to Fran.
Our big Build the Nest fund-raiser which raised over £70,000 was the Canaryball Rally in October 2019 with 18 teams enjoying a 2,900-mile, five-day charity challenge across Europe. Setting off from Norwich, they travelled through eight countries and the Alps to Milan and back. And, being the 25th anniversary of the Canaries’ 1993-94 UEFA Cup run, they visited the three European football grounds Norwich City played at – Vitesse Arnhem’s Gelre Dome, FC Bayern Munich’s former Olympiastadion and Inter Milan’s Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.
Fran’s foundation fund-raising focus has also included a quiz night at the Virgin Money Lounge in Norwich, a bake sale and in April she was to hold a party night in her home village which was a sellout, but this has been postponed until further notice.
The #BuildTheNest campaign is currently aiming to raise £1m to complete a second phase of construction at the foundation’s Horsford community hub. Norwich City FC has pledged to match-fund up to £500,000 of the funds raised and the campaign total now stands at £400,000, including match-funding.
The second phase will cost £4.6m altogether and will add multi-use indoor spaces, an IT suite, 3G artificial football match, a café and changing areas to the existing facilities. It will allow the foundation to reach an estimated 12,000 more people a year as it works to tackle a number of issues in Norfolk.
The initial £3.6m raised includes funding from the Premier League and The FA Facilities Fund, Norfolk County Council, Greater Norwich Growth Board, New Anglia LEP and previous fund-raising from local businesses, trusts, donations and events.
If you would like to support Fran’s marathon effort for this worthwhile community charity cause visit her fund-raising page at www.virginmoneygiving.com/franbrown6