A marathon charity runin memory of late mother

Fiona (47) and David Benham (49), from Bearsden, ran in memory of Fiona’s mother who had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a condition that causes progressive scarring of the lungs making it more difficult to breathe.

There is no cure yet for IPF and sadly almost half of patients living with the condition will not survive for more than three years after diagnosis. Fiona’s mother was diagnosed in August 2014 and died just four months later.

Fiona had never run a marathon before, and training was much tougher than she expected. David, on the other hand, is a keen runner but considered it to be one of his biggest challenges to date.

They joined over a hundred other runners as part of BLF’s #TeamBreathe marathon running team.

Fiona said: “My mum’s IPF progressed so quickly. I’d never even heard of the condition before her diagnosis and needed to know more. The British Lung Foundation’s website was the biggest source of information for me leading up to her death. It helped me understand what IPF was, and what I could expect.”

David added: “I hope the money we raised helps to make more treatments available to improve and save lives.”

To support the couple visit their fundraising pages at: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/FionaBenham and http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DavidBenham.

If you’ve been inspired by Fiona and David’s story and want to raise money for the BLF you can visit www.blf.org.uk/fundraising, email [email protected] or call 020 7078 7912.