Security guard ran six marathons in 2016 and doesn’t intend to stop

Rae Black

Rae and Shelly Black had met 21 years ago while working together and tied the knot in 2004. They had been happily married with two boys until 2011 when they realised something was wrong.

“Shelley was probably unwell for about 3 months before we realised she was very unwell, on the day we found out Shelley went in to work not feeling great, and progressively got worst I spoke with her at dinner time and told her to go to the walk in clinic in Selly Oak, After being checked out there, they sent her to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for further check-ups.”

She was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease an illness that affected by over a million in the UK. The illness is a long term condition, which slowly causes the kidneys functions to lower.

Rae said, “The news hit us like a brick for better a word, Shelley is the backbone of our household I pretty much work all the time and Shelley organises everything, the news was quite hard to take because of the uncertainly it brought and the feeling of uselessness that comes with this.”

United family

However, the family of four stayed strong united, together fighting each day as one.

“We have a strong mentality towards illness in our house, whether it’s a cold or Shelley’s Kidney illness we refuse to let it beat us, we fight it as a family, we never hid it from our kids, there are days when it is not great and we just rally round."

Shelly herself is continuously fighting for her family.

“Physically for Shelley the disease causes her to be tired and she has to rest, but we work round it, mentally – Shelley is like me we refuse to let this beat us we will fight it until we beat it.”

The Millennium Point security guard stood by his wife during the visits and after speaking with his doctor he decided to take it on himself to get into shape to become a donator if his wife needs a kidney.

“I was around 18.5 stone at this time, he said the fitter I was the better my recovery time and the better shape my Kidney would be in for Shelley, and so towards the end of August 2013 I started running.”

Becoming the marathon man

The running led him to taking part in raising money through holding bake sales and running marathons, which wasn’t as easy as signing up and walking, Rae took the challenge seriously and prepped for races. Leading him to run many last year.

“There is a lot of prep that goes into training for a marathon, generally training it 16 -20 weeks and a steady build-up of mileage, to get your body use to fatigue and for you to get a customised with your running gear."

His need to stay in shape has got him doing several marathons.

“In 2016 I ran six races of marathon or further distance, in 2017 I plan to run around the same but some races are longer than the marathon distance."

The illness has strengthened Rae’s views on life making him a stronger person than he was, with a more positive look on life.

“I’m motivated to keep myself a fit as possible for the donor operation, to see how far I can run in one go and to see how far I can push myself. I truly believe things happen for a reason, it has been pretty hard on our family, but at the same time it has also pulled us closer our family."

Staying Positive

Shelly is running strong herself and the donation from her husband will only take place after dialyse has not worked and Shelley’s kidneys have failed, at the moment they are not quite at dialyse stage. But this hasn’t stopped Rae from keeping up his marathon efforts with new goals in his mind.

“I’m currently training for a race in April which will see me run 53 miles or a double marathon in one go, this is currently my goal race but I have my eye on a 100k race later on in the year.”

He left his story with some strong advice for those who have been given news about being diagnosed or know someone diagnosed.

“Advice – take every day as it comes, don’t let beat you and as clichéd as it might sound fight it don’t let get you down.”

To find out more about kidney research UK click here.

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