Kate Murphy’s London 2025 Marathon

Hello everyone! Thank you for taking the time to view my fundraising page.

I am honoured to be running the 2025 London marathon to support TOFS, a charity dedicated to those born unable to swallow.

OA/TOF are rare congenital conditions of the oesophagus (food pipe) and/or trachea (airway) that affects 1 in every 3,500 births. 

I honestly can’t talk about this without getting emotional. The whole experience for me was extremely distressing. We are truly grateful for everyone who supported and continue to support our family. 

Rory’s story: Rory was born on the 10th January 2016 at Basildon hospital after a quick and wonderful labour.

Rory was born a perfect 6lb 14oz and was 3 weeks early. We were discharged that evening, but I was concerned with the lack of feeding and strange noise he would make. 

The next day, we returned to our local A&E department. The doctors eye examined Rory, gave a suppository to him and explained to me that the lack of feeding and wheezing sounds were due to mucus from the quick birth. 

Days passed and nothing improved, so we decided to go back to our local A&E for a second opinion. 

They took one look at Rory and rushed him straight into a ward room, where a tat tube was put down Rory’s throat, confirming his diagnoses. 

Rory had lost 25% of his body weight and had contracted sepsis.

We were blue lighted via CATS to Addenbrooks hospital for life saving treatment. 

Once Rory had arrived in paediatric intensive care, we were told to prepare for the worst and that Rory may not survive the night. 

After a couple of days in intensive care with the most incredible team of specialist, the life saving 5 hour surgery was completed, with the anaesthetist rubbing Rory’s leg for 2 hours of the surgery to save it due to a blood clot. 

Rory was 11 days old at the point. 

Fast forward a whirlwind 2 years! R

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Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me! 

all ready for Sunday. 💕

My last official run now until London. PB sub 1 hour 10k with my running club!

Thank you to everyone who has donated and who is continuing to support me in my marathon journey. 💕

The last of the long runs are done! 

Lots of tears, aches and pains. 💕

Running Vest is filling up with our beautiful TOF Warrior names! 💪🏼

Seems so real! 6 weeks to go! 

Hoping to fill my shirt with names of all our beautiful strong TOF warriors! 

So the used toy has raised £178.58! 🧸 Thank you to everyone who supported this! ⚽️🦖🪀🚂🧸

Thank you for everyone who has also donated! So nice to see we are over 75% towards the overall fundraising target. 

Longest run to date! 💪🏼

Keep pushing 💪🏼

Thank you for everyone supporting the used toy drive! We are upto a £115 contribution Towards my fundraiser ! 

We still have 2 weeks left! 💪🏼

Getting the distance up now.

10 miles comfortably at 1 hour 45 minutes.

the aches and pains aren’t getting any easier the day after. 

Comfortable run today! 7miles under my belt. Only stopped twice for the green man otherwise I’d of defo got up to 11.5k 💪🏼

Our 3rd fundraiser is well and truly underway ! 

We have decided to set up a used toy drive to help raise money for the charity and to help us mums clear out after Christmas!

this will be running right up until the end of February and the total to be added to the fundraiser by mid March! 

Thank you to everyone so far for their overwhelming generosity ! 

Happy new year to all. 🎉

Training has officially started and I’m following the Coopah 16 weeks marathon plan to get ready.

1st Coopah run was a 3.1k run in 25 minutes (completed 3.2k in 20 minutes) 

the end goal seems so near, and I feel so unprepared, but these January blues will not defeat me! 

Big thank you to everyone who brought a team for our football team raffle ! 

We raised £100 for the charity with £100 going to the winning team!

draw will take place once all the money has been collected. Best of luck! ⚽️

On the 25th and 26th November, the Sixth Form at Gable Hall School supported our first fundraising event - a two day bake sale to raise money for TOFS charity.

The sale raised a lot of awareness for the condition, with a lot of students engaging with the information booklets and magazines that were set out.

£301.29 was raised over the 2 days!

Thank you to Holly, whose dedication and hard work lead to a fantastic start to this campaign!

A big thank you to our star bakers: Callie, Charlotte, Holly, Lisa & Amy for giving up your time and your ingredients.

A big thank you to the students that helped aid the sale: Holly, Callie, Dakota, Nia, Emma & Amelia

And finally, a big thank you to the year 13 student body, teaching staff, admin staff and the Sixth Form Leadership Team for supporting the cause.

You all helped make it a huge success.

https://tofs.org.uk/

Always a worry with a TOF child. Rory was camping with his scouts sector and got a piece of chicken stuck.

17 hours… 2 hospitals, 74 miles, 1 ambulance on blue lights, 1 minor operation under general anaesthetic, 1 large camera down his throat, 1 large lump of mushed up chicken now dislodged and 1 giant milkshake consumed before discharge. 

Our TOF children are resilient warriors. 

TOFS offers support to people born with Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula (TOF) and/or Oesophageal Atresia (OA). These are rare congenital malformaltions of the gullet and windpipe. Immediate neonatal surgery is a treatment, not a complete cure. We are UK-based and receive no public-sector support at all.