Kiri's 100th Marathon, in support of Achilles NZ

Hi I’m Kiri Price from Auckland. I’m a mum of 3 and a marathon runner, and on Saturday 12 September I’ll be running my 100th marathon at The Legend Marathon in the Waitakere Ranges in Auckland. An iconic New Zealand event that is run in the memory of the legendary Arthur Lydiard, and also surely the toughest road marathon in New Zealand.

I have the best job; as a running coach for both GetRunning and AUT Millennium I get to work with runners doing marathons, and I’m very fortunate to also be working with a team of disabled athletes who are heading to this year’s New York Marathon with Achilles NZ. We’re all volunteers at Achilles, and we all do it because we’re passionate about getting people with disabilities into mainstream running events.

We have a team of 8 athletes with a range of challenges (including MS, double amputee, brain aneurism, immune disorder and blindness) heading to New York to represent New Zealand in the biggest and best marathon in the world in November this year. The cost of getting each athlete to New York is just over $5000 (including flights, accommodation and marathon entry) and I would like to try and help raise enough funding to get at least one person away on this trip of a lifetime.

Running a marathon is a massive challenge, and even more so for an Achilles athlete. Yet what is really special is that completing a marathon not only changes their life, but also the lives of those supporting them, and it shows us all that anything, even finishing a marathon, is possible if you put your mind to it.

It’s taken me over 12 years to tick off my 99 marathons and it means a lot to me to dedicate my 100th marathon to this team of athletes – Nic, Mike, Ian, Greg, Richard, Tamati, Terry and Kelly - an amazing group of people who not only inspire and motivate me, but who remind me constantly about how truly blessed I am to be able to do what I do, how life can change in an instant, and how if we dream, we can achieve.

Please support me in helping to get this team to New York.