Thank you!

I am in the process of writing up the whole week of marathons, but it's taking me a long time! There are a lot of miles to cover...

Tomorrow Jo Porter will be setting off on her part of the Miles for Chandramauli challenge - she will be taking part in the 100 mile Suffolk Sunrise race - you can support her at www.justgiving.com/jo-churchill.

In the meantime I wanted to shout from the rooftops a huge THANK YOU to everyone who helped make my crazy brainchild challenge work so well. Having got over the disappointment of not being able to complete the final two marathons as planned, I can now see that the challenge has been a huge success if only because we have completely smashed the original target of £5000! I thought we were being very ambitious aiming to raise such a large amount of money, but right now the total on my justgiving page alone stands at £7,731, and Leo's is over £500. This is entirely down to your generosity. It is staggering and very humbling to think that so many people supported this cause.

This figure - which including gift aid will reach nearly £10,000 - will do more than pay for the kindergarten as I tentatively dared to hope. 45 preschool children will be clothed, fed and provided with books and education for a year. Thanks to your generosity we will also be able to support a further 8 residential children's studies for a year. This means that 8 lives can be completely turned around: 8 more children that society forgot will be given a chance to lead a better life and given the tools and the opportunity to lead society, and to initiate social change for the better. (There is still time to donate if you'd like to at www.justgiving.com/tararuns8in8.)

There is a more Oscar -acceptance style list on the Thank You page if you're interested. I was amazed and overwhelmed by the amount of support, both through donations and people volunteering their time to run with me, look after Leo, cook, massage and send messages of encouragement as well as helping in many other ways. Thank you all very, very much!