Adrian’s Half Marathon Challenge

Adrian started the year knowing he wanted to help the homeless and decided to do so by facing a very new challenge. Read his story below:

“If you had told me on January 1, 2018, that I would be running my first marathon in two months, I would say you are very much mistaken. I am a 50-year-old dad, children’s author, and professional performance storyteller – NOT an athlete.

But the increase in the numbers of homeless has had me asking, what can I do to help? I was homeless once, as a teenager, for nine months – at a time I had travelled overseas to spend 12 months with an absent father who threw me and my suitcase out after 24 hours. I found various good souls who would put me up (lifetime friends made there!) but spent the majority of that time sleeping under hedges out of sight in public parks. Luckily I had a good quality sleeping bag my loving mother had given me as a birthday present before sending me to spend some time with my father whose parenting skills simply did not exist. I braved a whole European winter in this way.

More and more families are struggling – my own storytelling and writing business was growing year on year for over a decade until the 2008 recession. The places I worked, schools, libraries, youth clubs, lost funding and a diary that had bookings filling almost every page up to two years in advance suddenly was filled with red lines as one booking after another was cancelled. In the end, every single booking, out of several hundred, was gone. This made things very hard for me and my children, though there was also plenty of attention, care and love to go around.

Homelessness is on a rapid rise. These people need our help so I am running for them. If you had a jacket, a cardboard sheet and a doorway, instead of warm blankets, a cosy bed and your own room, would you not hope for a helping hand?

Running this marathon is going to be a huge physical and potentially emotional challenge for me.

I have chosen Shelter as my main charity with Action Homeless receiving 30% (my partner lives in Wigston) and Greenpeace receiving 10%. (before settling in the UK over 20 years ago to raise my kids, I was a national coordinator of Greenpeace Australia – if we lose the planet we all lose our home).

A lot of time, sweat, pain and determination is going into this on my behalf. For my first training run, I managed half a kilometre before feeling out of breath!”

You can support Adrian by donating and following us on Twitter for updates.

Why don’t you take up a new challenge to help the homeless? Every penny raised will go towards helping us achieve our target of creating 100 new beds in 2018.