5454King

we’ve RAISED OVER £5,600!

5K for 5 weeks for King Navassa… Fundraising with Cayman Connection’s FitClub

WE DID IT – WE RASIED THE FINAL FUNDS NEEDED FOR KINGS FIRST SURGERY!!!

From Saturday 16th October to 13 November Cayman Connection’s Director Kate Kandiah ran 5K every Saturday for 5 weeks to raise funds for long standing member King Navassa for his “Reclaiming my Life” fundraiser. Kate passed the baton to Tyler Phillips, who ran 5K for 5 weeks and added a BONUS RUN!

We did it!

We have made the first goal and have completed phase one!
Over £5000 raised means that King has had his initial procedure to have the Gastric Sleeve surgery, which took place on December 10th, 2021.

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King’s Story:

Life gets difficult to appreciate when the size of your body eclipses your dreams. Living in constant pain, always tired from only getting 2 hours of sleep each night, the joint pain, limited mobility, and the constant stigma. My weight had become my identity soon after I entered adolescence. It closed doors that I worked so hard to open. It had painted over my aspirations and minimized my larger-than-life personality to just a peanut inside of an oversized shell.

The mental drain of dealing practically and logistically with obesity, as well as the insecurity of it all, is a burden and I am tired. I can barely walk, and my body is in constant pain from joint damage. I only made it worse forcing myself to exercise out of desperation to lose weight, but at 220Kg that was dire mistake…I am ready to go through with medical intervention and undergo bariatric surgery. The procedure I have decided on is the Roux-en-Y Gastric bypass procedure…Please help me by donating whatever you can or sharing my campaign with someone who you think may be able to help.

Tyler’s Story:

I am taking the Baton from Kate for 5454 King and it is really an honour. I am really excited to get back in to running. Well done to Kate for raising the awareness for Kings fundraiser and setting the standard! King and I went to 6th form together and over the years he has become one of my closest friends. I am looking forward to helping however I can. I’ll be running 5K a week up to Christmas and plan to add an extra run for Christmas Day! Please donate!

Kate’s Story:

I am so impressed with how brave King is to have put himself out there and ask for help – that is HARD! I am doing so now as I want to raise awareness and funds for King’s cause and to share my own reasons for being passionate about wanting to help him. King has been a joy and a delight ever since I have known him, he was one of the first members of Cayman Connection, hosting one of the first-ever Cayman Connection events in 2012 – a Pirate’s Week event at Keele University. King has given back to the community with his time, love, joy, laughter, solace, and amazing singing voice. He now works with Cayman Connection offering time for volunteer coordination and is the host on our all-new podcast “Celebrating Caymanians Overseas”. King’s efforts and work with Black Beetle Health is a testament his desire to help others and I know I am only one in many whose life has been positively affected by this gentleman. It’s time to give back to the King and help him to “Reclaim” his life.

I have now completed my 5 x 5K and have topped up Kings fundraiser (which was already well on the way!) to 5K – so we are delighted. I found the challenge very hard, I am not a runner and I don’t enjoy running, but I think that is good for me there are a lot of life lessons in pushing yourself.

I did all 5 runs at PARK RUN UK – an excellent way to join organised group runs and to be motivated with, and supported by, others. These are all over the UK and I highly recommend this for anyone interested in doing more running, wherever you are in the UK.

My Times are below:

16 October – 40.05 – My starting run – I jog/walked quite a bit of this one, the first one and I found it quite hard! I was excited to be starting the journey so it was fun! The thing noticed the most, was the support of strangers, the volunteers, and even the general public just walking around the park were all cheering me on it was amazing and a nice metaphor for life, this can and does happen. I also had CCFitClub cheering me on through our whatsapp group for this and all runs!
23 October – 37.14 – My second run went well, I felt good and felt stronger, a nice improvement, even one of the marshals commented that I was stronger this week! I was pleased!
30 October – 37.20 – I really thought I had beat last weeks run time here but just missed it, by 6 seconds! But was a good run.
06 November – 41.12 – I had a real dip here, I struggled, was tired, and found this one really hard, had to walk a lot of the way and my mind took over with negative thoughts, there can be lots of reasons for this, but the main thing is to know thats OK, and it happens and to move on and try again. I reminded myself that even though I struggled, and I was in a negative space, that this would pass, and at least I did it, I came, I ran and I completed. Another metaphoric life lesson there!
13 November – 33.29 – GREAT RUN FOR THE FINALE! Had my partner Nick as running buddy and that made a HUGE difference – When I felt tired I reminded myself I was running for KING, and that kept me going, imagining him post op, getting his life back and being able to move more, and one day doing a 5K with me! Nick was great, and helped me when I got tired. I was very happy to end on this run and to feel good about what I had achieved. I am delighted to pass the baton knowing I did what I could.