Mike's EU Marathons

Hi all

I wondered if you could help me out a bit. As you know I've been running these marathons for a while around Europe and I'm now getting to the point where the countries I have left (with the exception of Iceland) are pretty small in terms of ME support/awareness and it's getting understandably harder to find ME patients to interview. Just due to the population sizes of places like Bosnia, Andorra, San Marino etc.

I won't share this question anywhere else. But I'd love to know, what can I do with my running that would help more to raise funds and awareness to the cause?

I'm concerned that mopping up marathons in these tiny countries only serves to get me press as a marathon collector but if I'm not meeting people, helping them lobby their governments, highlighting their stories or at least raising money it feels a bit pointless and just expensive for me to fund.

I'm 12 years into helping Invest In ME now and still as committed as ever.

Shall I 'finish' Europe? Try and run some bigger races? Start running Ultras? What would help you the most. Throw any ideas at me!

Thanks

Mike
 
Don't know if it would appeal, Mike, but one idea might be to approach all the main ME/CFS charities in Britain and Ireland, to see if there's interest in getting together a small group of their supporters to run a European marathon? There might be folk who'd quite like to do Paris or Amsterdam for instance, but wouldn't go on their own.

Making it a coalition of charities (hopefully including ones in the host nation) might be a way to make a bigger splash. It wouldn't necessarily result in a big sum for any charity individually, but they'd all get both donations and publicity. The runners would benefit from your experience in registering for places, sorting accommodation, getting in touch with locals, etc—and they'd all have different networks of friends and colleagues they could tap up for sponsorship.
 
Kitty said:
Don't know if it would appeal, Mike, but one idea might be to approach all the main ME/CFS charities in Britain and Ireland, to see if there's interest in getting together a small group of their supporters to run a European marathon? There might be folk who'd quite like to do Paris or Amsterdam for instance, but wouldn't go on their own.

Making it a coalition of charities (hopefully including ones in the host nation) might be a way to make a bigger splash. It wouldn't necessarily result in a big sum for any charity individually, but they'd all get both donations and publicity. The runners would benefit from your experience in registering for places, sorting accommodation, getting in touch with locals, etc—and they'd all have different networks of friends and colleagues they could tap up for sponsorship.
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Thanks for the reply Kitty.

That's a great suggestion. I'll have a good think about it.

I know that the ME charities don't really see eye to eye most of the time. I can imagine I'd get a lot of negative comments for collaborating with Action For ME for example. I could leave them out though I guess.

It would be a huge logistical project to put together and manage which I don't have the time for whilst my kids are still very young. But definitely something to consider in the future.
 
Mike Harley said:
Thanks for the reply Kitty.

That's a great suggestion. I'll have a good think about it.

I know that the ME charities don't really see eye to eye most of the time. I can imagine I'd get a lot of negative comments for collaborating with Action For ME for example. I could leave them out though I guess.

It would be a huge logistical project to put together and manage which I don't have the time for whilst my kids are still very young. But definitely something to consider in the future.
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Most of the UK ME charities collaborate through Forward ME. Invest in ME do good work with their research funding and conferences, but they tend not to want to work with the other charities. I don't know why.

Action for ME are much better than in the past. Their collaboration with Decode ME and future research with Chris Ponting is very positive.

I think both AfME and the MEA have volunteers running marathons or half marathons as part of their fundraising, so if you wanted to join with them you wouldn't necessarily need to do the organising.
 
I suppose the other aspect is what you’re into and perhaps where the interest from others is? Ultras and backyards seem to have a bit of a cult following and quite a social and community aspect too which may be something you/we could tap into? There seems to be no shortage of events around the country and around Europe. I was talking to someone recently who brought up this group https://lhgrunclub.com/
 
An obvious idea is to venture beyond Europe. I guess that gets a lot more costly and time-consuming though. Local ME/CFS organisations might be able to provide some support e.g. offering accommodation. Perhaps if you had a short list of non-Europe marathons you would be interested in in 2026, you could post it here and we could see if members have ideas to help?
 
It's probably not as exciting as new places, but actually, returning to the countries you have already visited could make for compelling publicity.

What has changed for people with ME/CFS? In a lot of places, sadly, not much. And many people with Long Covid have ME/CFS, so the problem is substantially bigger than it was. It would be very interesting to hear from the people you have interviewed, 10 years or so on.

It could mean that you could capitalise on the relationships you have. Maybe a combination of a repeat Europe marathon and a new non-Europe one might make for a feasible annual plan?
 
Kitty said:
The runners would benefit from your experience in registering for places, sorting accommodation, getting in touch with locals, etc—and they'd all have different networks of friends and colleagues they could tap up for sponsorship.
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Mike Harley said:
It would be a huge logistical project to put together and manage which I don't have the time for whilst my kids are still very young. But definitely something to consider in the future.
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There's certainly something in that idea @Kitty.

Mike, you wouldn't necessarily need to do most of the logistics yourself. I'm sure there are companies that organise tours, and they might be interested in facilitating a series of marathon tours. You now have a wealth of experience in what makes for a good marathon and travel experience in diverse countries. That's uncommon and valuable knowledge. Perhaps donating your time as the tour leader and having part of the fee that each person pays to the organising company going to ME/CFS research would be an effective way to raise funds?

I reckon there would be a market for that; I think a lot of people might like the idea of experienced support and the fun of travelling in a group. The ME/CFS community might be able to help publicise the trips.

It would be very understandable if the idea of looking after a group of strangers doing something physically challenging in a new country is your worst nightmare though.
 
Hutan said:
Mike, you wouldn't necessarily need to do most of the logistics yourself.
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To be honest, I wasn't really envisaging that. It was more that if a few people agreed on a marathon they'd like to do, Mike could advise on the process of registering, offer tips on accommodation, etc. I imagined people would make their way there and just decide where to meet up, because they'd all be coming from different places.

They might cheer one another on, have a meal together beforehand, or whatever—but not necessarily run as a group, as it'd probably be really hard to go that distance at someone else's pace.

Hutan said:
It would be very understandable if the idea of looking after a group of strangers doing something physically challenging in a new country is your worst nightmare though.
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Yeah, that would be a nightmare, but it shouldn't be necessary with adults. Nobody ought to be doing their first ever marathon in a different country, they'd presumably be people who like running and have done some events already.

The idea of a group was really about getting joint publicity from different charities all trying to do the same thing, not being an organised trip. But this group of runners who'd be up for branching out into one of the capitals of Europe might not even exist anyway! :emoji_sweat_smile:
 
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