25th October 2010
The death of Michelle Sinclair from Lisburn, Co Antrim in January 2007 at the age of 20 from an undiagnosed heart condition, allowed me to see at first hand the devastation caused not only to her own immediate family but to her friends and the community as a whole.
After much soul searching I thought what better way to celebrate Michelle’s life than to really rise to a challenge which in my book seemed almost impossible at the end of March 2010.
It was at this time that I first learned of the work of CRY and became aware of the risks involved with undetected cardiac conditions in young people.
In a country whose culture very much centres around sports of all types, it was always my intention after this to play my part in raising awareness of the risks involved and at the same time raise money to allow CRY to continue their very valuable work.
I, a very unfit woman of 48 who had never run before, would attempt the feat of completing the 26.2 miles of the Dublin Marathon at the end of October 2010.
So, assisted by my sister Theresa – who is very fit – I started to train. On my first run I ran a quarter of a mile and then had to have my husband John come and collect me in the car. Not to be deterred, I persevered. With the thought of Michelle and the beautiful life I would be celebrating I soon got to grips with the gruelling training sessions which quite often had me out running at 6am on cold wet mornings.
When it came to fundraising I contacted the people at CRY who were delighted that I had chosen their charity to support and provided me with their charity pack and information on how to set up an account with Virgin Money Giving.
This proved to be very productive in raising funds. Given that we live in an electronic world I was able to send out large numbers of emails and mobile phone texts to a large number of people informing them of my charity run and providing them with the website to donate.
The donations just poured in, but more importantly a lot of people contacted me and told me of their shock at the statistics that 12 young people a week die of undetected heart conditions in the UK.
In a lot of occasions they indicated that it had made them consider the risks involved with their own kids who play sport and had made inquiries about screening.
Another way of raising funds was to get two of the local football clubs to sponsor both mine and my sister Theresa’s shirts for the race.
The local clubs, St Peter’s GFC and Sunnyside FC, were delighted to be associated with the charity and it provided much publicity for the work of CRY among those involved with children in sport at grass roots level. Again the donations flowed in and St Peter’s GFC members also carried out their own fund raising for the event.
The girls of the Maze Presbyterian Church in Lisburn – of which Michelle was a member – ran a pampering evening with all proceeds for the evening going to CRY.
I also persuaded our local paper “The Lurgan Mail” to run a feature on the charity run which provided much needed publicity for CRY and the donations continued to flow in.
I had set an original target of £500, but at time of writing we have crossed the £2500 mark and have pledges which hopefully with gift aid will exceed £3000.
My work at that stage was far from over, however. I still had to repay people’s faith in me by running the Marathon.
On the morning of the 25th October I set off with my sister Theresa, my husband John and friend Teresa for the start line. The weather on the day was beautiful – just ideal for marathon running.
The atmosphere in the city was electric. Lining up at the start line I was terrified but the atmosphere of the occasion soon allowed these feelings to give way to ones of excitement.
The route for the Dublin marathon is beautiful and the people of Dublin who had come out to cheer us on were absolutely marvellous.
They cheered and encouraged and drove on the weary runners like only they can do.
At 18 miles, when I was almost ready to concede defeat, I arrived at a water point only to see my daughter Fiona and my 3 year old grandson Reece cheering wildly.
They had travelled to Dublin for the day to surprise 
me. Reece (pictured left with me at the finish line) was sporting a T-shirt with ‘Good Luck Nanny’ on it and screaming wildly “Go Nanny Go!”.
Although, after seeing a Buzz Lightyear running he changed his allegiance and cheered “Go Buzz Go!”. This was the encouragement I needed to get me the final 8 miles.
I completed in 5 Hours 7 minutes and as you can see from the pictures coming up to the closing stages I was well in the lead and was only pipped at the post by 9104 people.
Crossing the finish line was one of the greatest experiences of my life. As I crossed the finish line I thought of Michelle who had so much to live for and whose life had ended far, far too soon.
I was so proud to have been able to celebrate her life in this way and I was also so humbled to be able to play a very small part in helping to save the lives of young people.
Kathleen McStravick
