Niki Felton

My Dad is my Runspiration - he ran the London marathon in 1991, I was 14 at the time and we were not able to go up to London on the day to watch him so we went to my Nanny's house to watch the race on her big colour TV. In the times before fancy dress and brightly coloured clothes were common my Dad wore a purple woolly hat with a  lime green bobble so that we could try and spot him in the crowd and low and behold in the live coverage on Tower bridge we did! It really was meant to be as we later learned that he had to toss the hat a couple of miles later as he was over heating. I remember thinking to myself on that day I want to be like my Dad and run the London Marathon one day. 

Fast forward to 2013 and I’m a couch potato smoking 20 a day. My dad’s health is failing and I realised that if I want to do this before I’m 40 like he did, and while he is still around to remember it then I need to do something  soon because ‘No one gets in the ballot first time’. Don’t tell all the people who have been trying for years and years and years but I did and I couldn’t quite believe it – I genuinely had never met anyone who had got in the ballot first time! 

As a non runner at that stage I made the same mistakes many do when training for their first marathon and did too much and got injured so I deferred my 2014 place to 2015. My dad had been formally diagnosed with Parkinsons at this stage so given that I was taking on the biggest physical challenge of my life, I decided to request sponsorship for Parkinsons UK – I was humbled and delighted to be able to raise £2018.75 and I completed the marathon in 5 hours and 57 minutes. 

My dad Sadly passed away in 2017 from complications related to his Parkinson’s but I have continued to run and now have 16 marathons and 2 50km ultra marathons under my belt – my Marathon PB is currently 4 hours 17 minutes but I am now working with a coach to try and bring that down to closer to the four hour mark, maybe even just under……. 

Running has quite literally saved my life – The pandemic hit me earlier than most as I was due to run my fourth world marathon major in Toyko in 2020 when they cancelled it 13 days before the race. It was the first big international event to be cancelled due to COVID and I was devastated that I was missing out on something I had been working towards for 4 years by that time. I live alone and the downward spiral that came with lockdown was pretty bad to say the least. I didn’t run at all for several months and the black dog completely took over, I wasn’t even leaving the house. My local running events company started putting on virtual events – starting with 5k’s and this gave me something to target again – I started off just going out for a mile a day, I couldn’t even run that when I started and it was really hard to keep going but I made it back to 5km, then to 10km and from January 2021 to October 2022 I ran every day for 724 days – sidelined finally by illness after a work trip. In my darkest times getting out there every day when there was literally nothing else to do kept me alive. 

I am lucky enough to have travelled all over the world to run and whilst finally collecting my Sixth Star of the Abbott World Marathon Majors series in New York in November 2023 was EPIC, and Completing the Marathon Pour Tous at the Paris Olympics in August 2024 was an unforgettable experience, London still remains my favourite marathon in every way and since 2017 I have had the privilege each year of being part of the volunteer team that makes the magic happen at the greatest race in the world.  

I am honoured and delighted to be able to celebrate 10 years of marathon running by taking part in the London Marathon in 2025 and raising money for Parkinsons UK in memory of My Dad. It’s been my favourite day of the year every year since 2015 – running myself that year, tearing round the course on public transport supporting a friend in 2016 and then volunteering every year since 2017