MDC fundraiser wins lifetime achievement award

At 80 years old Michael Aimable is a dedicated Muscular Dystrophy Campaign runner and has received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stubbington Green runners, a club based on the south coast. He has been a dedicated supporter of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign and regular runner in the London Marathon with us since the 1980s. He supports many other charities as well.

Michael started running in 1980 at the ripe old age of 54. Since then he has notched up an incredible 90 marathons and 132 half marathons. That’s well over 4,000 miles in the last 26 years, and that’s not counting all the other races, plus an average of 40 miles a week.

A former cipher operator in the Army for 22 years, he caught the running bug after he decided on the urgent need to lose weight. “I was 15 stone and overweight. I was getting violent pains down my left arm and heart and I knew I had to do something. It took me a month to be able to run a mile, and then one day a friend said they would give me five pounds if I did a half marathon for charity. It was a blessing in disguise”.

“I am very slow to start off with but once I hit 18 miles I come alive and I shouldn’t imagine there is anyone younger than me who is running marathons any more” he said recently.

“I raise a lot of money for a lot of different charities and it makes me feel good that I’m running for other people who can not walk properly. To see their smiling faces as I run past them makes me want to keep running”.

Michael has again joined the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign running team for 2007, and when asked if this could be his last, he replied “never say never”.



If you want to follow Michael's lead check out our running events in 2007