Sue Wills and Jane Sullivan both have sons who developed a heart condition later in life.
Ms Wills’s son Tim who is now 25 was diagnosed when he was 17 while Ms Sullivan’s son George was 19 at the time and is now 22.
In an effort to provide even more support for their children as well as anyone else around New Zealand with a heart condition, they both signed up for the inaugural MyMarathon challenge.
A fundraising event run by the New Zealand Heart Foundation, MyMarathon challenged Kiwis to walk, run or swim at least 42km during the month of May to raise funds for heart research.
The fundraiser concludes at the end of the month and so far Mrs Wills had raised $6333, the highest individual amount in all of New Zealand.
Over the course of the month Ms Wills walked 252km, the equivalent of six marathons.
Ms Sullivan, who participated in the team section with members of her family, had raised more than $4000 across her team and elected to swim for her marathon.
Ms Wills said she really wanted to challenge herself with MyMarathon.
"I do walks regularly, so I thought I needed to do something that would just push me.
"I also wanted to do a different walk each day."
"So I did walks all around Timaru, walks around Pleasant Point," Ms Wills said.
" I’m in the Mayfield walking group, so did some around Mid Canterbury and I was up in Christchurch with Tim for an operation, so I did some walks up there as well.
"My thing was shine, rain, hail or whatever, I had to get out and do at least do five to 10km a day."
She said it had been a really positive challenge to be involved in.
"It’s been about making the best of a bad situation and we’ve got to be strong for our boys.
"Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could raise that amount of money.
"I feel very humbled that everyone got behind it."
She said it was important to get behind an organisation like the Heart Foundation.
"[Heart disease] is the biggest killer in New Zealand and desperately needs research.
"How technology and research has progressed just in the last 60 years is amazing.
"My son has a pacemaker and defib the size of a matchbox in his chest but 60 years ago when pacemakers came out you had to carry a battery pack with you.
"We’re just passionate about keeping research moving on, raising people’s awareness and they need dollars to get research going.
"Most people know someone with a heart issue, so it’s not just ‘poor us’, because lots of people have different conditions.
"We just want to raise awareness for ours."
Ms Sullivan said she had a strong motivation for getting involved with the fundraiser.
"George had an admission in April and it was a bit of a blow to him.
"This gave him something positive to think about and what could he do to help overall rather than being focused on himself.
"I swim three times a week so I thought I could do my part and swim a marathon over May.
"His sister in London also did 100km."
She said she was proud of the efforts of everyone who took part.
"It feels pretty cool and with me having a disability, it was nice that I could still contribute.
"It’s a really amazing feeling to see what we have done."
Ms Wills said it had been a challenge to find the new normal.
"As a mother, when your children have something you want to be able to fix it, but when you can’t you have to look at other tangible things you can do.
"There has got to be hope, so my hope is that there will be breakthroughs in research, because with Tim’s condition he didn’t show any symptoms until he was 17.
"It’s a life-changing thing for these boys and girls, especially if they’re sporty like ours.
"It’s debilitating.
"There are huge restrictions in what you can do but you look fine so people don’t always understand.
"They don’t want to be any different, they just want life to go on but that makes them really strong and resilient which is something we are really proud of."
Anyone wishing to donate can still do so until the end of the month by visiting Sue Wills or George McAleer’s pages on www.mymarathon.co.nz.
