Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

at 21/01/2009 16:49

Two of Cornwall’s firefighters are celebrating raising £5,500 for The Fire Fighters Charity, which they raised by running the New York Marathon and would like to thank everyone that contributed.

Lee Griffin from Wadebridge and Sacha Wheatman from Bodmin, who both work in Brigade HQ in Truro arranged a variety of events to raise the funds including a raffle, runathon at Asda in Bodmin, car wash, collection boxes, a race night and donations.

Lee explains, “We were offered the opportunity to run the marathon for The Fire Fighters Charity in a group of 25 firefighters from across the country. We obviously jumped at the chance to represent the South West, and then the hard work fundraising and training for the marathon began.”

Lee and Sacha undertook a 16 week self motivated training schedule, running around Cornwall and gradually building up to running 20 miles a few weeks before the event itself.

Sacha continues, “We flew over to New York with the other firefighters and were welcomed by the New York Fire Department, who took us to see Ground Zero among other things, which was extremely moving. We were also in New York for the announcement of Barack Obama’s Presidential win and stood in Times Square watching the big screens as it was announced, which was an added bonus to the trip as the atmosphere of that moment was amazing.”

Sacha completed the marathon in 4 hours 20 minutes, his personal best having run the London marathon twice before. Lee finished in 5 hours 8 minutes and despite being disappointed at not breaking the 5 hour mark, he was happy to finish.

Lee and Sacha would expressly like to thank:

Salvus Consulting for providing £500 for training kit, Asda Bodmin for holding the ‘Runathon’ back in September, Dave Brown of Barclays Bank who assisted in securing match funding for the Race Night, fire stations who held special events – Wadebridge, Saltash, Padstow and Bodmin and of course every individual sponsor who helped them raise such a fantastic sum for The Fire Fighters Charity.

Pic shows Sacha Wheatman (l) and Lee Griffin with their NY Marathon medals

Related item: http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=43507