Sign up for Northstowe Half Marathon to help Red Balloon

Cambridge charity Red Balloon, which offers wellbeing and social re-engagement for young people in Cambridgeshire who are out of school due to trauma or bullying, is the chosen charity for this year’s Northstowe Half Marathon & Red Balloon 5k, which is set to take place on Sunday, 27 April.

Sarah Deboys, Red Balloon’s deputy co-ordinator, said the charity was delighted to be chosen as the charity partner for the event, which is supported again by the Cambridge Independent.

“The 5k is named after us and the idea is that proceeds from that come to us, for putting towards therapeutic centre space,” explained Sarah.

Rupert Douglas, 17, one of the youngest half marathon participants, is a Red Balloon student.

He said: “My training has been going fairly well. I have been going on runs weekly to build up the stamina to do a full half marathon.

“Running the Northstowe Half Marathon is really important to me because Red Balloon have done so much for me and I wanted to give something back.

“I also wanted to challenge myself, as I haven’t run anywhere near this far before.”

Sign up and find out more at northstowehalf.co.uk. For more on Red Balloon, go to redballoonlearner.org.