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Heart disease runs in 66-year-old Mike Page’s family and he says ‘he owes his life’ to research carried out by the British Heart Foundation for which he is raising money through sponsorship

A man from Wellesbourne who owes his life to heart surgery is taking on a huge 26.2-mile challenge to help ensure the lifesaving research that helped save him life can continue.

Mike Page, 66, will run the 2023 TCS London Marathon for the British Heart Foundation (BHF) on Sunday April 23.

Mike always felt fit and healthy until 2015 when he started experiencing chest pains and was unable to take more than 20 steps without the pain coming on. Tests revealed four blockages in his heart and amazingly his smaller vessels had grown to ‘bypass’ this and keep blood flowing to his heart, which was keeping him alive.

He successfully underwent a quadruple heart bypass and is now running to give back to the science that saved him.

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The BHF and its work are important to Mike as he has a family history of heart disease.

He lost his grandad, grandmother, aunt, uncle and mum to coronary heart disease, and his sister, Karen, to a complex heart condition, tetralogy of Fallot, when she was just three months old.

His brother Russell, 63, also has coronary heart disease, and has had a coronary stent fitted.

Mike said: “It’s thanks to BHF research that I’m here now and want to give back and say thank you.

"It doesn’t matter how fit you think you are, heart disease can affect anyone.”

To help Mike reach his fundraising target, visit his JustGiving page https://bit.ly/3ms3Y8x

Wellesbourne man running London Marathon after life saving quadruple heart bypass