Care home chef completes marathon and raises £8,000

We are delighted to announce that Mark Roberts, Head Chef at Chacombe Park Care Home in Oxfordshire, completed the London marathon in 4 hours 10 minutes and 33 seconds.

It was his first ever marathon and he was running to raise money for a charity that helps older people and other adults living with a disability.

The London Marathon 2017 took place on Sunday 23^rd and over 40,000 people were running on the day. It was a fantastic atmosphere, with crowds of people cheering on the runners along their exhausting 26 mile route. Amongst the supporters were members of the Royal family and Mark was lucky enough to spot Prince William and shake his hand.

Mark was clearly well-prepared and kept up a great pace throughout. He said afterwards that his legs gave way at mile 22 but you wouldn’t know it from his fantastic finishing time!

Mark managed to raise over £4,000 for Barchester's Charitable Foundation, beating his target amount significantly. Every pound raised by Mark will be matched by Barchester, which brings his final total to more than £8,000!

Mark said: ”Thank you so much to everyone who supported me and donated to this great charity. A big thanks to Princebuild Ltd too, who donated very generously and helped me organise a charity football match at Chacombe Park to raise even more money.

“The Marathon was incredible from start to finish. This country gets a lot of stick but you saw the best of it on Sunday - everyone did this country proud. The crowd were great, there was music, drumming, dancers. People were giving out sweets and food; you could have had a 3 course meal on the way round if you wanted!

“I was really aching on Monday and fell over tying up my shoe-laces the next day!”

It’s clear that Mark has caught the running bug as he’s already starting to train again.

“When I finished I said to myself ‘never again’ but now I have signed up to do the Birmingham Marathon in October!”