Not only did Sarah Hopewell ran the London Marathon on Sunday 21st April in 3 hours 54 minutes, but she did it whilst festooned with swimming paraphernalia and raised £1292!

Sarah is the East Herts District Council Executive Member for Wellbeing and has been incredibly supportive of the idea of the community taking ownership of the Ward Freman swimming pool since it closed in December 2023. She has been working with the Ward Freman Community Pool Group to help create a business plan and application to the Community Ownership Fund.
This was not her first marathon having run the 2007 London Marathon and already had her place secured when in the final week before the event she decided to fundraise for the Ward Freman Community Pool Group. She took it all in her stride and although there was a bit of chaffing from the arm bands she found the waves of crowd support really encouraging and much larger than 2007, helping her to go sub 4 hours (which resulted in an extra £50 donation). Remarkably she was up and dancing as well as helping to serve drinks at our fundraising ‘Dance the Decades’ event less than a week later!