Mum-of-two running the TCS London Marathon

Mum-of-two Navinder, from Surrey is running the TCS London Marathon as part of Team BHF in 2022. Her place was deferred from 2020 due to the Covid pandemic. She’s running in memory of her beloved dad Dershan who passed away 10 years ago from heart failure. He had previously had two heart attacks and Type 2 Diabetes.
Running the marathon in 2022 will be extra poignant for Navinder as it will mark the 10th anniversary of her father’s death. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/navinder-molyneux
She said, “I’m Malaysian of Indian heritage. I was born in Malaysia where my father came from. I know that South Asian people are prone to getting certain types of heart disease. I don’t know why, but I’m aware of it.
“My dad had a couple of heart attacks that I knew of when he was young – in his late 30s and early 40s. It’s shocking really to me. I don’t know whether it was because he had a more sedentary lifestyle, lack of excise or poor nutrition – but I was shocked that it happened to him so young.
Her father developed Type 2 Diabetes as well which runs in the family and she knows it is related to heart disease. Her grandparents on his side both had Diabetes and her mum now has it.
“But I don’t have it fortunately and I’ve been ensuring that I maintain a healthy lifestyle. I used to be around 18 stone but now I weigh around 11 stone at my highest. My lowest weight can be 9 or 10 stone. I’ve maintained that lower weight now for 13 years and I’m really proud of that. I’m not aware that he had high cholesterol or any symptoms and my mum doesn’t really talk about it …it’s a difficult thing for her to talk about,” she said.
 She believes her father ignored the symptoms. Navinder decided to do something as her dad’s legacy to raise money for the BHF for heart research to help stop other families from going through what she and her family went through.
She decided to run a marathon. Her dad was a runner and played football and was fit and healthy. Navinder said, “I knew it would be a real challenge for me but I wanted to rise to it. I started by doing a local 10k and trained for that and then set my mind to training for a marathon. I knew this would be the way I’d want to commemorate my dad’s life. I remember him running miles and miles when I was little and I remember sitting in the car waiting for him whilst he’d go running.
“Once I’d made up my mind to run the London Marathon I applied to you to run it for the British Heart Foundation and I got a place. When I opened the email to say I had got my place it all suddenly became real…like that moment in Who Wants to be a Millionaire when the lights go down.”