A Windermere hotelier who wants to run a half marathon before she’s 50 is in training to raise money for a good cause.
Caroline Kaye, who owns the Cedar Manor Hotel with husband Jonathan, has a place in this September’s Great North Run.
Caroline, who started running only two years ago, is fund-raising for the charity Lupus UK. She’s being assisted by parents and friends of Windermere Prep School who are holding a charity coffee morning for the same cause.
Lupus is a chronic and presently-incurable illness of the immune system, a condition in which the body’s defence mechanism begins to attack itself through an excess of antibodies in the blood stream. It causes inflammation and damage in the joints, muscles and other organs, and Caroline’s 21 year old daughter Natalie is a sufferer. “She was diagnosed when she was 15, but it had taken two years to identify from when she first showed symptoms,” said Caroline.
“That’s not unusual as the condition is very difficult to identify. We are helping the charity in their attempts to research the causes, and possible treatments, for Lupus.”
Natalie is a beauty advisor and make-up artist for Estee Lauder at Selfridges in London. Younger sister Elizabeth, 7, a pupil at Windermere Pre School, is playing her part by helping Caroline’s training efforts – she goes alongside on her bicycle when mum goes for a run. “Though she’s not too keen on the hills,” said Caroline.
She started running after joining a “boot camp” at Windermere School, run by Helen Westmorland who is now her personal trainer. “As a Londoner who fell in love with the Lakes, I loved training in this landscape. We’d run with Helen for a while, then she would stop for a stretching session, and she would say: stretch towards the fells, stretch away from the fells. You don’t get that experience in London.”
Caroline has done just two races so far, 10k trail events at Coniston and Derwentwater. After surgery for a knee problem last year, she’s back in training and confident of achieving her goal at the famous north east race. “It’s something I wanted to do before I was 50, and there’s not much time left,” she said.
The Windermere school coffee morning will be held on Friday May 9. On the following day, which is World Lupus Awareness Day, Caroline will stage an afternoon tea party in the gardens at the Cedar Manor. “Local people, and our visitors, are very generous. I know that there are many demands on people’s kindness, and I think it is important that we raise attention to a cause which is not well known.”
Caroline can be sponsored at http://www.justgiving.com/CarolineKaye
Lupus affects mostly female patients, and symptoms may include fatigue, eye problems, mouth ulcers, joint or muscle pain, rashes, anaemia and miscarriage. It is not infectious or contagious, and can be triggered at puberty, after childbirth, during the menopause, through exposure to sunlight, after viral infections or trauma, or after prolonged courses of medication. More information from http://www.lupusuk.org.uk
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