Man to run marathon months after heart surgery

A teacher is to run the London Marathon to raise funds for a charity that helped his family after he was born with a heart condition.

Mitchell Elliott, from Rochester in Kent, will take part after recovering from heart surgery in May, which followed previous procedures aged 10 months and 11 years old.

He said that doctors had told his mother that he would "never be able to run a marathon but he should have a normal quality of life".

"When she told me that I thought, 'you know what, I'm going to run a marathon'," the 32-year-old said.

"This is my first marathon and probably my last," Elliott told the BBC.

"With the limitation that I had as a child and the fitness I had growing up, I never thought I would be able to."

He said that Bligh Primary School in Strood, where he is deputy head teacher, had "really rallied behind me" ahead of the race on Sunday.

A "healthy hearts day", where pupils wore red or heart-themed clothes and completed fitness activities, raised more than £3,000, he said.

His marathon fundraiser has collected more than £5,000.

Elliot is raising funds for Evelina Children's Heart Organisation (Echo).

The deputy head teacher has the congenital heart condition Tetralogy of Fallot, and his most recent operation involved one of his heart valves being replaced.

According to the NHS, the condition is a group of structural abnormalities of the heart that impact its structure and function.

He told the BBC that his "lips went blue a lot" as a baby and before his open-heart surgery aged 11, his health had deteriorated and he became easily breathless.

He said that his mother "pretty much did it on her own" when he was a child, "which is why I think Echo was such an important part for her".

The charity arranged counselling ahead of his operation as a child and "put me on the London Eye the night before my surgery just to take my mind off it", Elliott said.

Echo chief executive Samantha Johnson said that Elliott had raised a "phenomenal amount", which would "enable us to support many more children with special hearts and their families".

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