Tom Ralph was pleased to be able to give something back to a charity that helped his daughter Megan at the Royal Parks Half Marathon
Running isn’t always about finishing as high as you can or beating your own personal best. Or about impressing your friends on Strava with how even your splits are and how many CR’s you’ve picked up. Sometimes it’s about something bigger than that. It’s about making a difference and changing peoples’ lives. That’s where the charity element comes into it.
Running can be a great vehicle to raise funds for a worthy cause. Or to support one that is close to your heart, perhaps by virtue of a personal experience. We’ve seen how in races like the London Marathon, millions of pounds are raised for various charities and causes and it really does make a difference to the lives of many people in need.
Tom with some members of Evelina Children’s Charity
Also based in London, the Royal Parks Half Marathon is another event that is heavily charity focused. Set up in 2008 by the Royal Parks charity as an annual fundraiser for London’s eight royal parks, the event enables all kinds of different charities to be involved and become beneficiaries. In fact, the event has raised over £70 million for 1,200 different charities.
Taking part in this year’s event, Tom Ralph was raising money for Evalina Children’s Hospital – a charity that is very close to his heart. Tom’s daughter Megan was cared for by Evelina Children’s Hospital during her first weeks in this world. He hasn’t forgotten that and still feels a debt of gratitude to them for the happy life he shares with Megan to this day.
In 2022 he ran the London Marathon and raised money for Evelina and when the opportunity came up to do the same at the Royal Parks Half Marathon he jumped at the chance.
Tom paced his run really well and kept it controlled throughout
The course for the Royal Parks Half Marathon takes in four of the London’s eight Royal Parks and they are Hyde Park, Green Park, St James’s Park and Kensington Gardens.
It was a very well judged effort from Tom and his splits were extremely consistent throughout the run, all around the 6:45 mark. That was despite various undulations on the route. Once he got to the 12th mile though, Tom had the strength to push on and up the pace for the last two miles to around 6:30. That was enough to see him cross the line in a brilliant time of 1:28:25.
That put him 441st overall and 76th in the 35 to 40 age category. It was an emotional day for Tom as he thought a lot about everything the charity had done for him and Megan.
Tom was happy to have ran well and at the same time to have raised a lot of money for a charity close to his heart
The race was won by Oscar Bell in a time of 1:05:12, with Andrea Soffientini taking 2nd in 1:09:04 and George Grassly coming 3rd in 1:09:14. Nicola Jackson was 1st female in 1:18:15, with Becky McGreevy 2nd in 1:19:35 and Sophie Bowles 3rd in 1:19:44. There were 16,750 people taking part in total so that would have been a lot of money raised for charity.
The weekend after the Royal Parks Half Marathon Tom would be back in action in the 54km Maverick Jurassic Long race where he would be tackling over 1,200 metres of elevation.
If anyone would like to help Tom with a final push to reach his target for the Royal Parks Half Marathon, here is a link to his fundraising page…
Tom runs Royal Parks for Evelina