On Sunday 5th November, Joe Bates, Andrew Pugh and John Fawcett took on the most famous marathon in the world – the New York Marathon.

For Andrew and John, the prospect of navigating the 26.2 mile course was a little less daunting as two marathon veterans. For Joe, who has been an integral member of the charity since its inception in 2015, he was attempting to complete the feat for the first time.

The trio got off to an early start, meeting at the New York Public Library at 5.45am to embark on an unusually long 3 hour coach journey to the start line in Staten Island. After a rousing rendition of Star Spangled Banner they were off.

The weather on the day was forgettable, although the cloudy skies and intermittent rain wasn’t enough to deter the 52,000 runners and over 1 million spectators lining the streets, along with live bands and DJ’s adding to an incredible carnival like atmosphere.

A huge thanks to the support team who cheered the guys along with notably mentions to Tom Sheppard who travelled over from England and Lucy Baumgartner who provided support both on the day and throughout.

All three runners performed admirably on the day, with a special call out to Andrew Pugh who broke his personal best time on a notoriously hilly course by crossing the finishing line at 3 hours and 29 minutes. Great job Andrew!

Most importantly the team raised over £6,000 which will prove to be invaluable in helping us to continue to raise awareness of the lack of diversity of those signed up to stem cell donor register and carry out donor drives in both the UK and US.

The whole event has been such a great success that we’ve applied for 5 spaces for the 2018 event. Fingers crossed that our application is successful and if you are interested in running on behalf of the charity and raising funds please get in touch with Joe: joe.bates@raceagainstbloodcancer.com