Last week the Executive Principal’s Blog featured and promoted the superb charitable work of Zak in 11 Elm. This week’s newsletter article has been written by him to provide a bit more detail lying behind his inspiring efforts:

After enjoying the holidays, New Year was upon me and I was up for a challenge. Some have New Year’s resolutions but I did something a little different. Bored, doom-scrolling on Instagram I came across Prostate Cancer UK, a charity I had seen before promoted within the football games I had just watched. I saw they were doing a charity event, running a marathon (26.2 miles) throughout the month of January. Being curious I had a look and a little read into what it was about..

I needed to run a full marathon, 26.2 miles, within the cold treacherous days of January. That meant getting the bus home, freezing cold in the snow and getting myself up and out running. For me, I decided to challenge myself and run in larger chunks, to make it harder than it already was. This meant running a minimum of 3 miles (about 5k) every time I went out and trying to improve my time, each session. So, I signed up on Boxing Day, through the official Prostate Cancer page, set my target of £100 to raise and began sharing the link.

I notified a few of my friends via my social media and the community on Twitter/X of Watford FC fans began sharing, along with some good mates and family on other apps. It took off pretty quickly and by the evening I had already reached £75. I was over the moon! I kept sharing and telling people what a good charity it was and by the time New Year came around I had almost reached £200! Prostate Cancer UK sent me a t-shirt and a running t-shirt to help me out and for raising so much already, and I set a new goal of £300 which I thought was probably never going to be beat.

2025 came around and the challenge was upon me. I started on January 2nd, with a 5.25km run, a challenge after all the Brussels sprouts over the holidays; but I was up for it! The next 2 runs were slightly harder as it was snowing the whole run! After school I had come home ready to set off and it started snowing, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Freezing, snowing, slippy – nothing was going to hold me back and I pushed on through all the cold days after tiresome school work and revision.

The page was gaining traction and I was raising lots more money than I had expected, after 3 runs I was just shy of £400 – exceeding my initial target! It only kept getting more and, not long after, I had reached over five hundred pounds. Crazy. I kept running, pushing myself to the limit, wearing my Prostate Cancer running t-shirt with pride. The last week of January was left and I was on £700. £1000 became a dream at this point, but the last 10 miles needed completing. So after a long day, motivation high to do the best for charity I set my best time in a 4.5 mile run! We were getting closer to £1000 – was it in reach?

So, the final 6 miles were left. £950 raised and 4 days to go. Could it be? Tuesday evening, 9.00 pm, I received an email from JustGiving of a £10 donation from another BMS student. That reached my ONE THOUSAND pound goal! I was elated. I couldn’t believe it. From the goal of £100 on Boxing Day to a month later having raised £1000. It was an amazing feeling. I got out on Wednesday, freezing cold and ran the last 6 miles. Hard and difficult, I pushed through and completed it!!

A month of very hard running, getting myself fit and burning off all the Christmas dinners, but I had done it, I was proud of myself and it was such a great feeling to finish and know that I’ve done my part to help such a great charity. Proud of my efforts, I wanted to share the great news with Mr Turner as I know he would love to hear about this and he was delighted. He wrote me a really nice email and really kindly donated some money to the cause.

So now, as of writing this I’m on £1,310 and just really grateful for all the donations that have been given and any more that I may receive. £1500 would be unbelievable on another scale. So, thank you to anyone that has donated and thank you for reading this.

The JustGiving link is just below, to check out more details on my run. Thank you. Zak.

A quick thanks to Watford FC, for congratulating me on the run along with one of Watford’s greatest ever players also congratulating me – Luther Blissett OBE.