Ollie’s Paris half-marathon 2024

Final update.

Well, the race was run in 1h43m29s, which I was more than ecstatic about, now the donations are closed, the money has been distributed (and no, I didn’t deduct the charges from GFM as it’s on me, so what you gave is what actually made it to the charities). Thanks a million for your amazing generosity. Together we raised a quite incredible/unexpected (to me) 1700 euros!

Cheers,

Olivier

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Right, I first and last ran a half-marathon in 2006 (well, technically I ran the distance the other week to test myself, OK). So I thought as I was feeling very fit again and survived longer runs, that I might have another go.

And so why not also run with a fundraising purpose? (I failed that last time though it was already at the back of my mind).

But then, how do you do that? Especially when you want to give money to both UK and French charities?

Seems like using this platform and then making the donations myself from the sums collected (charges from GFM deducted, I guess…) might be the easiest.

I have no idea if I can raise 10€/£ or a lot more but that shouldn’t stop me trying.

As for causes, there are far too many to support, but I will focus on four, two each side of the Channel.

On the UK side:

The Willow Foundation, https://www.willowfoundation.org.uk from the legendary Arsenal goalkeeperBob Wilson and his wife, giving happiness to young adults hit by cancer. (Many thanks to Lisa at Willow for finding me and spontaneously and gratuitously providing a Willow vest to run in).

Mind https://www.mind.org.uk It’s not just a fad, I have always been interested in things of the mind in general, and I believe there is still a lot of work to do on the field. So yes, mental health is paramount and worth studying and understanding to be able to help people better.

On the French side, I’m leaning on my parents’ heritage to support:

AFDIAG https://www.afdiag.fr Again. Gluten intolerance is not a choice and can lead to dramatic consequences.

And Fondation Alzheimer https://www.fondation-alzheimer.org/nous-soutenir/faire-un-don-fa/ and I’m afraid I don’t need to say a lot about this disease that is destroying minds.

The French system means I think I can get a tax rebate for donation to the latter two, so the idea, hoping the maths are not too complicated is to reinvest the rebate into further donations (and yes I know it’s recursive, but I’ll try my best).

And because a run means you can set yourself targets, I will give £10/€10 to each od these for every minute below 2h. (But should I fail to beat 1h55min, I’ll pretend I did it for the purpose of the donation - as an indication I ran about 1h53min in October in ideal conditions but who knows how March will be - 1h48 on 13/12 in more difficult conditions suggests that the potential is there at least).

Was that long enough? Now you know the drill. A vot’bon coeur as we say over here.

And yes, I should probably also write this in French but it doesn’t always come to me naturally (context….), I am somewhat lazy about translating it all now, and in this day and age, it’s pretty easy to get stuff translated online for free….

Merci,

Olivier