Manchester Marathon 2025 for Lewis’s Journey

We are challenging ourselves to complete the Manchester Marathon 2025, and the Virtual London Marathon on Sunday 27th April 2025, in support of Lewis’s Journey.

I (Gemma) have been running on and off since 2012, but began taking it more seriously in 2019. A friend told me that only 1% of the population have run a marathon. That gave me food for thought and I wanted to be one of those 1%, so I set myself a challenge to begin training to run a marathon in my 40th year of my life. I successfully completed the Tissington Trail Marathon in 2023 and afterwards said once was enough.

Stephen always came to races to support me, and after a lot of encouragement from myself and friends he began his running journey in 2023. He has gone from strength to strength, he now goes running off leaving me behind, but he does loop back for me!

Each year we enter the ballot to get a place in the London marathon, but unfortunately we were unsuccessful again. This prompted us to enter Manchester Marathon as it would be flat, fun and a challenge. This will be my second and last marathon and Stephen’s first, as the furthest he has ever been previously was 10 miles.

Training is strict and we run at least 3 times per week, our long runs at the weekends build up on time and mileage on our feet to ensure we can cope on the day. In preparation for the marathon we will be taking part in the Ashby 20 mile road race in March, which is set around lots of challenging rural hills. We are putting in all this hard work and training all for Lewis!

Lewis is a fun loving 6 year old with an infectious personality that could light up a room, he has the most amazing smile and cheeky giggle. At the age of 4 he was given a diagnosis of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, an aggressive form of Muscular Dystrophy that affects 1 in every 3,500 boys born. It leads to progressive muscle loss.

It is caused by a fault, known as a mutation, on the dystrophin gene. Dystrophin is a protein that protects muscles; without it, muscles are easily damaged, and their strength and function is weakened. It eventually affects all the muscles in the body, including the heart and lungs.

There are very few treatments available to help all children at present and there is no cure.

Lewis is a wheelchair user, and his family need to make necessary adaptions to their home and purchase equipment to include a mobile hoist and a profiling bed to meet his long term needs.

Please dig deep and give anything that you can to support us in our efforts to raise as much money towards specialist equipment to help Lewis with his day to day life and to give him the best life possible.