An Abergavenny woman completed the London Marathon this weekend raising over £4,000 for Teenage Cancer Trust writes Jon Davies

Jennifer Watkins ran the marathon in four hours and fur minutes running in memory of her friend Matty Sandercock who sadly passed away aged 22 after a six-year battle with cancer.

Jennifer, whose family owns Wernddu Golf Club, decided to run for Teenage Cancer Trust after Matty received care and support from the charity whilst battling his illness.

Jennifer originally intended to run the 2020 edition of the iconic marathon and started her fundraising in 2019.

In honour of Matty who was also a golf member at Wernddu, a huge golf day was organised by Matty’s friend and the £1,000 raised from the event was put towards starting Jennifer’s London marathon fundraising.

Sadly however after training hard and raising a further £500 by selling raffle tickets at the golf club, the marathon that would have taken place in the Spring of 2020 was cancelled due to Coronavirus pandemic.

Despite her disappointment at the marathon being cancelled, Jennifer kept training and ran a virtual London Marathon in October 2020, and decided to bank the charity money to go towards running the real London Marathon in 2022.

Speaking to the Chronicle, Jennifer said: “I kept training and started selling raffle tickets again at the gold club and along with that and the charity boxes on the bar and donations from golfers, friends and family, to date I’ve managed to raise more than £4,000.

“I’m blown away with the amount of money raised and to do it running the Greatest marathon in the world which has been my dream since I started running back in 2015 was just an experience I’ll never forget!

“I wore my charity vest with pride and when the going got tough in the last few miles I repeated Matty’s mantra ‘pain is temporary pride is forever. I got in in four hours four minutes and it was the most emotional finish line I’ve ever crossed, and I would just like to thank everyone who helped support me and raise so much money for such a great charity that does such important work.”