A personal account of the Town & Gown race

The Town & Gown, a 10k race around the quaint streets of Oxford, is held every May. It continues to be a huge success, and is now in its 24th year. Over 3,000 competitors took part this year and between them they raised a fantastic £42,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign.

Here's an opportunity to read an account of a record-breaking competitor's experience in the Town & Gown.

By Lynn Lewis

Sunday 15 May 2005

"Today my son James and I are going to enter the Town & Gown fun run - a race held every year in Oxford to raise much needed funds for research into muscular dystrophy.

"Nothing remarkable in that you might say except James has muscular mystrophy and every movement takes a supreme effort. I have never run any race before, so I will be walking, and James will do the course in his electric wheelchair.

"We arrived and took our place behind the rest of the 3,000 runners, who were very soon out of sight when the race started. We carried on at a slow pace; the crowds of people were cheering James on and putting money in our buckets. James said he had never had so many people encouraging him before.

"Soon we saw the other runners coming towards us and thought we could not be that far behind - WRONG!! We turned the corner and there was no-one in sight - only a small yellow dot in the distance, one of the race marshals. We carried on and reached the High Street which by this time was open to traffic again. Thanks to the marshals, we managed to avoid the buses and bikes.

"About 4k in we looked behind and saw some more runners. We could not believe there was anyone behind us, but they said they had started late. We decided to join up and continued together chatting and encouraging each other. So as well as raising money we made new friends too. (Thanks to Russ (runner 961) and friends).

As we entered the park we could hear the loudspeaker announce James was on his way and that he was the first person with muscular dystrophy ever to complete this 10k race. As we approached the end, people were cheering and throwing more money in our buckets. I will never forget the feeling I had seeing him go over the finish line, with the crowd cheering him on.

"So my son may never be a great leader or climb a mountain or score that vital goal, but to me today and every day he is a hero. Not only because he took on a challenge and completed it but for the challenge he faces every day of getting up with a smile and doing what many of us take for granted “LIVING”.

I would like to thank Annie, Mavis, Ian, Jane and everyone who is involved with the race for all the hard work they put in to make the race a success, and the people of Oxford for making James feel like a champion as he went along.

James would like to thank everyone who sponsored him. He has raised £1,150 for research into muscular dystrophy."