Lauren hopes to inspire others with her bid to fulfil her marathon majors challenge
Shropshire marathon runner, Lauren Cooper is hoping to complete one of her sport's biggest challenges in less than two months time.
By crossing the finishing line at the Tokyo Marathon on March 3 the 35 year old will join an elite group of runners who have completed all six of the Abbot World Marathon Majors races.
The series takes in six of the largest and most renowned marathons in the world - Tokyo Marathon, B.A.A. Boston Marathon, TCS London Marathon, BMW Berlin Marathon, Bank of America Chicago Marathon and TCS New York City Marathon.
Lauren says she has never felt as strong and determined as she does now and she hopes her running will inspire other women and girls to be active and strive for their dreams.
The Shrewsbury AC runner lives in Bridgnorth where she is a well know face running in the area.
With hundreds of followers on her social media #thisgirlcanrunuk she is hoping that local and national businesses will step up with sponsorship to help her get to Tokyo in return for publicity.
Anyone who would like to help Lauren should email Thisgirlcanrunuk@hotmail.com.
Although she enjoyed cross country at school it wasn't until she was in her 20s that she took up running.
I worked for the NFU which had charity places for the Great North Run and I ran raising money for Macmillan. That really kick started my love of running," she said.
"I began doing marathons by getting charity places and raising thousands for charity, before getting fast enough to gain club and then elite places."
One of her favourite marathon moments, for many reasons was the Great Wall of China Marathon in 2017.
"The family make a holiday of it and also did either the half marathon or 10k while I did the marathon.
"At the end my now husband, Alex, proposed to me. He said it had planned to propose on the finish line but as I was the second lady home he had to wait until I was awarded my prize. He actually proposed to me on the podium."
