Our intrepid runners took up the challenge of the Great North Run to support our work. In many cases, their run marked a significant milestone on their thyroid journey. Here are a few highlights from their stories.

Ellie: My hypothyroidism has definitely thrown many hurdles at me over the years and I’m so proud of my body and
how it pulled me through on the day. Raising awareness and funds for the British Thyroid Foundation was also
incredibly rewarding, and made the whole day even more special. During my fundraising, I have had so many other people open up to me about their experience with thyroid conditions and that’s one of my biggest achievements
I feel: to help open up the conversation and raise further awareness.

Rachael: When I was diagnosed with Graves’ disease in January 2020, I initially struggled to do anything. I had
been fit and healthy, going to the gym at least three times a week. However, now I struggled to get through a full day at
work as a teacher without feeling like I was about to collapse or have my heart explode on me. At that point, I didn’t
really even know what my thyroid was. That’s where the BTF came in. Throughout my diagnosis and treatment, I used their website to help inform all of my decisions about treatment. In January 2022, I underwent radioactive iodine treatment and, with careful tweaks to my thyroxine levels, started to feel more like myself than I had felt in two years. That’s when I
made the decision to do the Great North Run. I have never been a runner and training was incredibly hard – the 2020 Rachael would never have thought this was achievable! I am so glad my fundraising will support other people like me who receive a diagnosis out of the blue!

Natalie: I felt like giving up in some places but knowing that I was doing this to raise awareness and increase
support for others like me with an underactive thyroid made me push through to the end.

Matt: Around four years ago I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. As a result of radiotherapy, it flipped to
hypothyroidism. Since then my sister-in-law has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and is now hypothyroid following thyroid surgery. Six months after that my wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and she has had half of her thyroid removed.
Luckily she does not have any other symptoms as the remaining half is working hard to maintain her thyroxine levels at a normal level. As you can imagine this has affected our family quite a bit so I wanted to raise funds for the BTF. I enjoyed the
day very much and ran twice as far as I ever have in training. That said, I was glad to see the finish line and was proud of myself for completing the run.

Thank you also to Stephen who raised £305 in the GNR and to everyone who has
donated to us recently. At the time of going to press, these are the amounts raised:

Matt £398 Nathalie £188 Rachael £608 Reece £518 Ellie £526 Emma £132 Jacob £322 Linda £40

GNR Runners 2022!