Excellent! - excellentdevelopment.com

Congratulations from everyone at Excellent to Hugh Dickson for his superb achievements - running the London Marathon and raising nearly £2,500 for community groups in Kenya.

Hugh said “I first met Simon Maddrell, the founder of Excellent Development, a number of years ago and was impressed by his approach to the charity. Organisations that help people to help themselves are, in my opinion, always worth supporting. He hadn't set it up for any personal gain and indeed was holding down a full time job in order to maximise the funds that would go to where they are needed. I have always wanted to support him and this was my opportunity.”

Thanks to Hugh’s hard work and the support of his sponsors, the 57 communities we work with in Kenya are that little bit further along their journey to food and water security. Every penny counts in these hard times as communities are supported to make the best possible use of the little water that falls on their land.

“We used to take our animals up to 10km to drink water - this year we take our animals 1-3km to drink after constructing the sand dam sites; through the construction of the sand dams this year around the river channel did not dry up – we had a continuous flow in the channel. We used the water in the river channel to plant vegetables, sukuma wiki and tomatoes, which we sold and earned KSH 6,000.” Iviani Self Help Group

Hugh describes his journey:

"On the day of the Marathon I awoke at 6am to a bright and sunny day and started the well planned out process of applying plasters to heels, taking Imodium and Ibuprofen to try to negate back pain and unwanted loo stops, attaching running number and timing chip to vest and shoe etc. After a breakfast of cereal and banana I walked up to Waterloo where, even at 7.30am, the trains to Blackheath were already packed with runners and their supporters heading to the start. The logistics of getting 36,000 runners to the start on time is quite a task in itself.

"By 9.30am I was lined up with all the other runners hoping for a time of around 4 hours. To get a time below 4 hours was my goal and what I had aimed for in training but with the warm weather there was already a big question mark over this. It was already clear that the day was going to be considerably warmer than predicted and that dehydration and heat exhaustion were going to be the main issues. At 9.45am the race began and only 5 minutes later I had crossed the start line.

"The first half went well and I was still feeling comfortable and was still on my target time. However we then turned to the Isle of dogs where the temperature seemed to soar. By mile 16 I was conscious that my pace had slowed and by mile 18 the whole mood of the field of runners around me was palpably one of struggle. It was at this point I admitted that my target time was not going to be achieved and so made the decision to just get round and not risk collapse. It is also at this point that the huge crowd, bigger than usual due to the sunny day, carried the stricken runners to the end with their enthusiastic cries of support. For the final six miles I slowed right down and even gave in to the temptation to walk on a couple of occasions whilst trying to soak up the amazing atmosphere that surrounds the whole route.

"The next day I felt an overwhelming sense of relief although the pain experienced on getting out of bed and standing up was excruciating! My finishing time of 4hr 24.01 was a slight source of disappointment until I spoke to many other runners who all experienced the same problems due to the heat and all had times slower than planned or hoped for."

We think Hugh did marvellously. Not only did he finish the Marathon in an incredible time, but he smashed his original fundraising target of £2,000. Our thanks to Hugh and everyone who sponsored him.