Haslemere’s ‘reading fairy’ Claire Peilow has run her first London Marathon to raise £2,651 for the Lily Foundation.

The Lily Foundation is a charity that supports children with mitochondrial disease, a rare genetic disorder where mitochondria cells do not produce enough energy.

A friend of Claire’s had a son with the disease who died at 19 months old but described how supportive the charity had been and are still actively supportive today.

“I've always enjoyed running and I've got two small children and I was looking for a new challenge, Claire says. My friend had run it last year for the Lilly Foundation and after chatting with her, she said to me, ‘well, why not run it for them?’

“I run a business called Reading Fairy which is preschool, drama and phonics at the Bee Hive at the Hogmoor Inclosure. I've got a two and a half year old, so I thought, ‘you know what?’ I think that's something I could really get behind, supporting families.”

Claire set up a JustGiving page where friends and family made donations and £600 through tickets for a dinosaur charity event that she did with a friend who owns Toddler Sense.

To prepare for the marathon, Claire ran 6 days each week, did 443 miles on the treadmill and on Sundays she would wake up at 5:30am in the morning and would do up to 21 miles before her children woke up.

“We were quite a small little group but it was a real privilege to run for a smaller charity rather than one of the big hitters. I did it in four hours so I was really pleased with how it went.” Claire said.

Claire and 43 others ran for The Lily Foundation and as a whole group raised £82,164!