Running a half marathon tends to be on the bucket list of most people but few actually get around to it. It\u2019s better late than never and one Birmingham grandad will attest to that.<\/p>\n
Jay Bansal plans to celebrate his 60th<\/sup> birthday by participating in the currently 7,500 strong Simplyhealth Great Birmingham Run. Alongside his son, Raj, who will be running in the Birmingham International Marathon on the same day, Jay is hoping to raise \u00a32,000 for the Alzheimer\u2019s Society, a charity close to his heart following the death of his father-in-law, Kundan Singh Bahra, who suffered with Dementia.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father-in-law had dementia for several years and passed away last December,\u201d said Jay, who works as a contracts manager at architectural ironmongers Branch BMN.<\/p>\n \u201cWe decided as a family that we wanted to do something to raise money and awareness and try to help others.\u201d<\/p>\n October 15th<\/sup>, when the events take place, will mark a culmination of a year long effort of Jay\u2019s family.<\/p>\n \u201cMy son and daughter, who have been the driving force behind this initiative, suggested we do a series of events throughout the whole year.<\/p>\n \u201cLittle did I know their idea of events was to start running!<\/p>\n \u201cSo the whole family; my wife, my son, and my daughter and I ran the Great Birmingham 10k and we\u2019ve since done various other 10k runs, half marathons, marathon and other running and cycling events.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd for \u2018the big one\u2019, on my 60th birthday I\u2019m going to be doing the Great Birmingham Run as a treat!.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no chance of breakfast in bed for my birthday; those days are long gone!<\/p>\n Jay doesn\u2019t want to take all the glory though, saying that his children were his inspiration.<\/p>\n \u201cI must say that my wife and I have been the \u2018support act\u2019 to the efforts and endeavours of our son and daughter who have been amazing!<\/p>\n \u201cWe set a fundraising target of \u00a32,000 for the end of the year but would really like to hit \u00a35,000 and we\u2019re optimistic we can do that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think it is such a fantastic cause and that\u2019s why the family are doing what they\u2019re doing and I could not be prouder of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Jay\u2019s son Raj will be celebrating his own landmark 30th<\/sup> birthday in October and the Birmingham International Marathon will be the end product of a lot of hard work for the events manager.<\/p>\n \u201cUp until June last year I\u2019d only ever done a couple of half marathons and that was a long time ago. I\u2019ve never enjoyed the training<\/p>\n \u201cBut last year my wife and I decided that we should try to get fit and lose a bit of weight. We knew we were getting lazy!<\/p>\n \u201cSo after seeing my mum, dad and sister taking part in Parkruns on Saturday mornings we went along with them and really enjoyed it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went again, and again, and really, really enjoyed it! I got the bug.<\/p>\n \u201cSoon after, I signed up for the Birmingham International Marathon and the running bug carried on from there.\u201d<\/p>\n Raj explained that as tiring as his preparation had been, the cause for which he was running continued to inspire him.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause we\u2019re raising money for charity and something that is really close to us, it kicks us on when we\u2019re not in the mood for training.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever hard I\u2019m finding doing a bit of running, there are people living with dementia who have it 1,000 times worse. Knowing this is what pushes me along.\u201d<\/p>\n The Birmingham International Marathon will start in Perry Barr at the Alexander Stadium and is sold out. However, Jay\u2019s Simplyhealth Great Birmingham half-marathon run, which starts on Jennens Road in the City Centre, is still open to entrants, and participants will gain access to an exclusive entry window for next year\u2019s Birmingham International Marathon. Both runs share the same finishing line, the Curzon Street Rail building near Millennium Point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Running a half marathon tends to be on the bucket list of most people but few actually get around to it. It\u2019s better late than never and one Birmingham grandad will attest to that. Jay Bansal plans to celebrate his 60th birthday by participating in the currently 7,500 strong Simplyhealth Great Birmingham Run. Alongside his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":23003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}