When nine-year-old Alice Rands set off on a 50-mile running challenge, she only wanted to raise £50 for the Leicester Children’s Hospital Appeal – just £1 for every mile.

But after she finally completed her challenge after weeks of running over the Christmas period, Alice had managed to raise an incredible £1,085.

Proud mum Caroline says the Leicester Children’s Hospital Appeal is a cause that is very important to the family after Alice was treated for a serious condition at the Leicester Royal Infirmary in her younger years.

“It all started in May 2015,” explains Caroline. “Alice was three-and-a-half, fit and healthy. Then, suddenly, she started regularly being sick – first once a week, then twice a week, then once a day, then twice a day.

“Obviously we were quite concerned, but after we followed medical advice to make sure it wasn’t food intolerances and she wasn’t getting better, I ended up taking her to the Emergency Department at the Leicester Royal Infirmary at 3am one night.

Alice was in hospital for three weeks and received a range of scans and tests as hospital staff investigated what was causing her such problems. Caroline stayed with Alice at the LRI while her husband continued to work and look after Alice’s older sister.

Eventually, Paediatric Consultant Mr Haitham Dagash diagnosed Alice with Brunner’s Gland Hyperplasia, an exceedingly rare tumour having developed on a gland that helps protect the digestive system from the acidic contents of the stomach during food digestion.

After a six hour operation, Mr Dagash and his team successfully corrected Alice’s condition and she has since made a full recovery. During lockdown in the run up to Christmas, Alice was inspired by her mum to take on a charity challenge to raise money for the children’s hospital that had treated her.

“I did a 50 mile running challenge in October to help raise money for prostate cancer support,” says Caroline. “Alice saw me doing that and said that she wanted to run 50 miles to raise £50 for the Leicester Children’s Hospital Appeal.

“We worked out that going into the Christmas holidays if she could do a mile or two after she’d finished school every day she could hit the 50 miles by the end of Christmas if she had a couple of days off on the way.”

Every night, Alice ran alongside either her mum, her dad, or some of her friends around her local neighbourhood. The more people learned about Alice’s efforts, the more the donations came flooding in.

“We’re really fortunate that our family, friends, work contacts and the others who saw it were so generous,” Caroline says. “She managed to raise £1,085. I think people were touched that a nine-year-old wanted to do something so out of her comfort zone.”

Alice’s incredible discipline and hard work has earned the attention of BBC East Midlands Today, who will be featuring her on tonight’s evening news bulletin. Caroline says she is very proud of her daughter’s efforts.

“I think it’s really pleasing to see people wanting to support a child doing a good thing. We’re really proud of Alice for coming up with the idea and then seeing it through.

“We had a little hiccup over Christmas when she was told to self-isolate because of a positive test in her class which meant we lost about six days. But when she came out of isolation and we heard Tier 4 was being introduced to Charnwood, we worked out that Alice had eight miles to complete in just 12 hours. She pushed herself to the very end and even clocked one of her fastest miles at the time! So it’s been very uplifting and a great experience.”

Inspiring children like Alice are helping to make our dream of a new, state-of-the-art children’s hospital in Leicester a reality by supporting the Leicester Children’s Hospital Appeal.

Anyone wanting to contribute towards the appeal can visit DoThemProud.com to donate, sign up as a supporter or learn more about the appeal, or can follow the appeal on Facebook at FB.me/DoThemProud and help spread the word on social media using #DoThemProud.