BBC London’s ‘Greater Londoners’STORY

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bbclondonpeople
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If I can use my body as a vehicle to fulfil my mum’s final wish, then so be it. 
When I was eight years old, I did my first ever cross country run. I remember my mum running next to me during the race. 
Skip forward a few years and I kind of got the marathon bug. Every single one I did, my mum was there with me, next to me, supporting me. 
So when she first got diagnosed with incurable breast cancer it kind of became a thing where I said to mum: “Just stick with me for one more marathon.” I wanted to run a marathon in mum’s name but she was horrified by the idea. 
By October last year her breast cancer had spread to her lungs and her liver. 
One Sunday lunchtime she said: “John, I get it. This isn’t about me. This is about others, so that others can have hope.” So she said I can run a marathon in her name - on one condition. 
I had to raise funds for research that seeks to end metastatic cancer [that spreads to other parts of the body]. I came up with the idea of doing an “impossible marathon” with a target time which I would never achieve but I would get close to. Like a cancer patient where the clock is always set against you from the outset. 
I set myself this target time of doing a sub 2 hour 50 in the London marathon. In my training I got up to the half marathon mark at the pace required, but I couldn’t keep it up. I was exhausted and got a time of 3 hours 3 minutes. 
In a way I’ve shared a tiny part of my mum’s experience. 
My mother passed away in December last year. 
We’re setting up a charity in her name, Team Antionette. We want to raise £320,000 which is the cost of a research project looking at ending metastatic cancer. The motto is, ‘So that others have hope’. We will raise the money. 
My first challenge is to do a marathon in 2 hours and 50 minutes. 
Nothing I can ever do can ever match what a cancer sufferer has to go through in the final years of their lives. 
John Friend, 25, Wandsworth 
#actionagainstcancer #cancer #wandsworth #charity #mum #mother #marathon

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