Run With Hope – noble initiative

Run With Hope is Nikolay Neshev’s initiative inspired by his desire to lead a healthy lifestyle. He describes that he needed a powerful motivator in order to make his goal achievable. He was able to do this by combining healthy living with a noble cause. This year, he has set the goal to complete half a marathon, a full marathon, and to run over 1500 km. He is also determined to raise £5000 from sponsorship and donations in 2011 and to donate the funds to create an integrated children’s area in Karin Dom.

It is a pleasure that we will introduce you to Nikolay and his story about the initiative Run With Hope.
 
About Nikolay

I am 32 years old, living and working in Lausanne, Switzerland since 2006. I am a systems administrator in a small international consultancy, which is quite a sedentary job.

Before becoming such an enthusiast about running, I did not have a healthy lifestyle. About a year and a half ago, I decided to change that, urged and inspired by the surrounding environment. Lausanne is a former Olympic host city and there are always different sporting events happening here.

The first successful step that I undertook was to stop my 16-year-old smoking habit. It happened much easier than expected. Because of that, my weight increased significantly in the next 6-7 months. This prompted me to put all my efforts into bringing it under control. And so, until the end of 2010 I worked out in the gym 2-3 times a week for about 30-40 minutes, which was not nearly enough to achieve the desired impact.

About Run With Hope

In 2011 I would like to change something about myself, something that I could benefit from. That’s why I set up a goal to run half a marathon, a full marathon, and to run over 1500 km in training and races throughout the entire year.

This is quite an ambitious goal for a person like me, who I stress this, has never been actively involved in sports, but I believe that I have the strength and the will to achieve it. I think it would be incredible if my running could help people around me as well as inspire others to change things within and around them. . This is how the idea to run for charity was born. It was all a matter of spending a few minutes online to find out exactly where to begin.

Soon after, I stumbled upon the site www.justgiving.com where I first learned about Karin Dom. With some further research about the foundation and its work with children, I was convinced that that the money I raised would go to a truly great cause. 

The pictures and videos I watched made me empathetic to the fates of the children you are caring for. Personally, I don’t know any children with special needs but what I saw and read strongly motivated me to give some of my time and efforts to something that will hopefully  be successful. 

Since the beginning of the year I have trained 60 times, ran 340 km, lost 5 kg and burnt over 40 000 calories. It’s no longer a burden to wake up at 5 in the morning and go running. The thought that my efforts can help a child is what helps me to fight the urge to go back to sleep or to skip a workout.

About the races

On March 19, 2011 Nikolay participated in his first race for the year: a 15km run  in the small town of Kerzers, close to the capital of Switzerland, Bern.Here is what Nikolay shared about the race:

It was very exciting. I ran 15km in 1:18:48 hr, which is great because the time I had set out for myself was 1:30 hr. I guess I was motivated to my maximum and my adrenaline was running high, which helped me to get the better time.

What’s next?

30th of October, 2011

Lausanne Marathon 

The Lausanne Marathon is scheduled to take place on October 30th, 2011. In 2010, 1163 men and only 180 women completed the combined distance of 42, 195 km. In 2005 the average finishing time for a marathon in the United States was 4 hours 32 minutes and 8 seconds for men, and 5 hours 6 minutes and 8 seconds for women.

Nikolay: My goal is to get a time equal or better than this. For a person to be able to make it through such a challenge, one has to be highly motivated and extremely well prepared. I believe that I already have the motivation, all I have left to do is preparation.

Nikolay is still waiting to receive confirmation about participating in other interesting races in the near future. . If he receives a confirmation for all, this means that by the end of 2011 he will have participated in a race every month of the year.

How can you support Run With Hope and Nikolay’s goal to raise 5000 GBP for Karin Dom by the end of 2011?

Visit Run With Hope’s Facebook profile at:
www.facebook.com/RunWithHope

Visit Nikolay’s profile on Just Giving:
www.justgiving.com/Nikolay

From Karin Dom – a big Thank and good luck!

Organisation that officially supported Karin Dom and Nikolay’s cause.