Hi my name is Ciara. I am fundraising for British Heart Foundation!

I am running in the London 2025 Marathon to raise awareness to a heart condition which almost took my Dads life back in January 2020

The heart condition is Bicuspid Aortic Valve - this is a congenital heart defect that occurs when two of the three leaflets on the aortic valve fuse together, resulting in only two

leaflets instead of three. The aortic valve controls blood flow from the left ventricle to the aorta, the body's main artery.

Unfortunately this condition is present from birth and affects 1-2% of babies, with males being two to three times more likely to be born with it than females. It often occurs with other heart defects.

Due to being born with this condition many people often function normally during childhood and adolescence, they can cause symptoms later in life, such as: Chest pain, Shortness of breath, Fainting or lightheadedness, Fatigue, and Heart murmur.

Due to my Dad being born with this condition we didn’t notice any of the signs, we just thought ‘oh it’s just Dad’ ‘Dad has just eaten too much and is sleeping it off’

This wasn’t the case…

My parents accepted jobs in china to work as teachers but before they could move over there they both had to get a medical exam. During my Dads medical exam his doctor heard a murmur in his heart so got him checked just to be on the safe side.

Turns out my Dads heart had doubled in size due to the amount of blood collected in there, his artery had also doubled in size.

If it wasn’t for that medical exam or doctor my Dad would have died within months.

He had to undergo open heart surgery to help him which luckily he survived. It’s been hard since and dispute his surgery being over 4 years ago he is still trying to recover.

I want to raise awareness to this condition in the hope that men will see a doctor and get their hearts checked to prevent more dying unexpectedly from this horrible condition.