A MAN who has embarked on a year of fundraising in memory of his aunt is at the halfway point of his four-marathon challenge.
Last year, Sami Dabbagh set a fundraising target for Macmillan Cancer Support to honour the "incredible" care that nurses gave his aunt Sahar after she was diagnosed with bile duct cancer.
Moving in with Sami's parents in Dentons Green after she was diagnosed, Sahar was given round-the-clock care by Macmillan and Willowbrook Hospice staff in the final 12 months of her life.
As this support also extended to Sahar's grieving family, Sami decided to set himself a challenge that would catch people's attention and raise as much money for Macmillan as possible.
Despite never running a marathon before, the 30-year-old decided to run four marathons in four months and is now at the halfway point after running races in Copenhagen and Stockholm.
His next marathon takes place today (Saturday, August 20) in Helsinki, with the final race in Oslo in September.
Sami, who now works for Unilever in Stockholm, said: "I felt physically prepared for the marathons to begin with, and was pretty happy with the shape I was in.
"It's the mental side of the race which I found the toughest, when you find yourself on your own after starting off with thousands of people.
"I think I have learned a lot from my first two races and although I know I'm going to struggle at some point, I'm in a much better place and know I can push through it."
Despite the mental and physical struggles of the races, Sami described each marathon as a "fresh challenge" in memory of his aunt.
With his parents, girlfriend, and friends coming along to support him, he said it has been an "amazing" way to bring everyone together and remember Sahar's life.
Setting an initial target of £10,000, Sami has now smashed through this goal and has ambitions to keep on raising funds until his challenge is complete.
He added: "As it's a prolonged challenge, we have luckily been able to keep up our messaging, raising more awareness and money for Macmillan.
"I know there's a lot going on in the world and a lot of people are struggling financially, but if we can carry on raising money we can hopefully help more and more families going through a similar situation to our own."
To support Sami's incredible fundraising efforts, visit this link.
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