Doctors 52 mile oncall double marathon

By Dr Syed

ON the 30th June 2018, Dr Asmah Hassan Syed and her Consultant Dr Deb Ghosh set off at 05:30am with 52 miles of road to eat up. Their motivation; fight against obesity and liver disease and to raised funds towards the fibroscanner for Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH).

Before the morning sun could break through they had covered 13 miles from PAH to St Margrets at Epping and back round again. Dr Ghosh unfortunately had a knee injury and Dr Syed strapped his knee and they took a break to meet and great the real starts of the show; the patients at PAH.

By 10:30am they were on the move again. Dr Syed ran ahead all the way to the Rivers Hospital (4 miles), refuelled and hit the road for the third part of the race to Herts and Essex Hospital (7 miles). By this time they had done 24 miles. The heat was pounding down and shade limited on the way to Herts and Essex Hospital. Dr Syed said ‘I felt great and at the 30 mile milestone mentally, physically and most importantly my make-up were all holding up well. I had been alone for many miles now and motivating one self when alone is though. I feel this experience reflected how patients must feel after they leave their clinic appointments with all the knowledge of how to improve their health and motivation, however this diminishes after a while when one does not receive the reinforcement messages to keep going. At this critical stage for me in my run/walk was the messages I was receiving from my colleagues back at the hospital. I had to keep going’.

By 6:30pm they had done 37 miles and was back in Harlow; now for the finish line, laps around PAH. Dr Syed stopped over at her next of kin’s family house; Dr Shah, who’s family re-fuelled her and after strong words of encouragement she hit the road one last time.

Dr Syed completed the 52 miles at 00:30pm! ‘Exhausted physically and really not fully aware of what I had achieved. Dr Ghosh completed 40 miles with his injured knee and that was a fantastic effort’.

Dr Syed said.’I hope I have inspired patients and doctors to do what seems impossible; health needs to be preserved and disease prevention is better than cure. Chronic disease conditions should not become your life, its part of your life. Mental health plays a huge part in all aspects of life and I believe that human attitude towards illness has the biggest impact on healing’.

One small step closer to getting the fibroscanner, please continue to donate.