Phil Brown was my husband and a friend to a group of people who want to support the work of We Get It. Phil's stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis 2 years ago came as an enormous shock and the team at We Get It provided a group setting in which he felt he could talk about some of what he was going through with an empathetic group of people who totally "got it". They shared stories of their situations and their daily lives and the group mattered to him (enough to make persuading him to put on a Christmas jumper for a Zoom call possible). He jokingly talked about it as a club that he would only be leaving one way and, sadly, he left it on Friday morning.
Phil loved a challenge and took to running from his usual position on the sofa as he turned 40. He said it was on his bucket list to run a marathon. On his way to his first one in Chicago, which he told no one about so it was down to his motivation alone to get through it, an immigration officer in the US asked him what he was visiting for and he told him and joked that marathon running was his mid-life crisis. Never one to do things by halves, he vowed to join the "Seven Continents Club" straight after that first marathon. He achieved that goal, and the goal of running all 6 marathon majors, almost exactly 5 years ago in Boston.
So, when I saw the e-mail from We Get It 36 hours before he died, I knew that I wanted to participate. I spoke to Phil about it and told him I would run or walk it for him. I mentioned it to some of his friends the next day and a plot was hatched to all do it on his behalf. So, here we are. We are walking, running or cycling 100k in May and all that is asked of us is that we raise 100 pounds (one pound per k) each. I know we can do better than that and I encourage everyone's support.
All the funds will be going towards supporting local people dealing with cancer through community events, socials and goodie bags.
We Get It supported Phil and we'd like to support them back.
