Hi, I’m Chok Bahadur Gurung and I‘m a Nepali amateur athlete and keen long distance runner.

I was born in a village in the foothills of the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal 27 years ago and I still live there, in a traditional house with the rest of my family.

I like to run in events from 5k – marathons and the highlights for me so far have been to complete the Tenzin Hillary Everest Marathon twice and last year, the Mt Annapurna Marathon. But running in the 2012 Virgin London marathon will be the pinnacle for me (no pun intended!)

It seems like a dream come true and I’m still pinching myself. I have the chance to do something unbelievable and to raise money to make an even bigger difference to people not as lucky as me. I hope you’ll help me do this – and read on for the reasons why.

I’ve never left Nepal, so I am really looking forward to coming to the UK and I’m still sorting out my visa application and flights. The nurse from our village came to the UK last year and said it was like a science fiction film, so I don’t know what to expect! I believe I’m the first resident Nepalese amateur marathon runner to come over to compete in the London marathon and I don’t want to let anyone down.

I’m trying to raise sponsorship funds for 3 good causes in Nepal and the UK

  1. Tang Ting Twinning Association (TTTA) which helps local communities help our villages in Nepal, one of the nicest but poorest countries in the world. Find out about their medical mission and child care centre and old people’s welfare work here.
  2. A friend of mine in the village who was crippled in a fire as an infant and is officially destitute – she’s 19 now and works as a shepherd and lives in a cowshed. She has the most amazingly happy personality and is really intelligent and never complains. Now she has the chance of operations to reduce her pain and fit prosthetic feet which will be life-changing, if we can raise some match funding. See more out about Bisnu Giri here.
  3. The Injured Soldiers Fund of the 33 and 101 Engineer Regiments Search and Bomb Disposal Units in the UK. These brave men work around the world and sadly suffer heavy casualties. This fund helps them and their families in our communities adjust to life with their injuries. Please read out about them here.

Quality of Life in our Nepal village has really improved in the 5 years since the Tang Ting Twinning Association started to help us. Their aim is for local communities to help local communities, so the funding gets straight to where it’s needed and everyone benefits by taking part.

It takes about a day to get to Tang Ting from Pokhara, the nearest town. I often run up and down our mountain as part of my training but never dreamed where this path might take me.

It’s the biggest honour of my life to be chosen for the marathon and raise sponsorship funding for people, many of whom can’t run at all.