Michelle Agha, a medical secretary at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton, took up the 2.6 challenge to run 26km at home and raise money for the hospital.
Michelle after her run
Michelle has worked at the Alex for the last six years and regularly sees the vital work the hospital provides to children and families. She then heard about the 2.6 Challenge, set up by the organisers of the London Marathon to help charities missing out on the fundraising that comes from the event, and decided to set her own challenge; 26km on her treadmill at home.
She decided to raise the money for Rockinghorse, the official charitable arm of the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital. Michelle explains; “I have seen at first hand where money donated has helped improve the lives of those poorly children being cared for in Sussex and specifically those at the Alex and the Trevor Mann Baby Unit.”
Michelle with her certificate of thanks
The challenge itself was tough, I have never run that far, let alone on a running machine. At the halfway point the machine did start to protest but I re-started it and the problem rectified itself, so I was able to complete the challenge.”
Finally, after 3 hours and 10 minutes it was all over! I can’t say what a relief it was to complete the challenge especially knowing that so many friends and family had kindly sponsored me. A few photos were taken whilst I could still stand and then I enjoyed a celebratory tub of ice cream followed by a 3-hour nap on the sofa!”
Michelle’s run raised a fantastic £710 and added to the total of £10,428 that was raised by 12 Rockinghorse supporters during the 2.6 Challenge.
Lucy Pond, Challenge Events Fundraising Manager for Rockinghorse, thanked Michelle for all her hard work; “Some of our key supporters are staff from the Royal Alex and TMBU. I’m always amazed at their passion to raise funds for their hospital charity, despite the long hours and the difficult jobs they do.
Michelle is a great example of a brilliant fundraiser. She can see exactly where the funds we provide are spent and wanted to do her bit to help. I have very much enjoyed working with Michelle, she is an inspiration to us all. Thank you Michelle!”
And this is just the start of Michelle’s fundraising; “Knowing that I have helped the charity is hugely empowering and, in turn, has motivated me to further fund raise for the charity. I hope that by doing the 2.6 challenge I have also inspired many of my friends and family to fund raise for charitable causes such as the Rockinghorse charity. I am proud to have been able to fund raise such a decent amount for the charity, here’s to the next challenge!”
