As the niece of legendary runner 'Sir' Stanley Burgess, it was always only a matter of time before Mrs Marquita Thorne laced up for the annual Bermuda Day Marathon – a race her late uncle won on six occasions.

The 51-year old mother of two is among the nearly 1,200 race entries who will make the gruelling 13.1-mile trek from Somerset to Pembroke on Bermuda Day next Monday.

Mrs. Thorne is deputy chairperson of Bermuda Diabetes Association and during this year's race she hopes to raise funds to run a summer camp (Camp Honeybee) for children with the chronic disease.

"I actually chair a committee for the type one diabetic; these are young people who live with diabetes and are insulin dependent. They have to take insulin for the rest of their lives," she explained.

Fourteen years ago Mrs.Thorne's daughter Tiffany was thrown out of a Government-run summer day camp after being diagnosed with diabetes, leaving her mother no other alternative but to enroll her child in summer camps abroad.

"When my child was diagnosed years ago she was in a Government Camp and after she came out of hospital she wasn't allowed to return to the camp because she had to carry needles to inject her insulin," Mrs.Thorne continued.

"Nobody there wanted to be responsible for this child with this chronic disease and so I ended up having to send her overseas to diabetes summer camps. She wanted to return to the summer camp but was told she could not because she lives with a chronic disease and to live with it she had to carry syringes in order to take insulin at the time of need – but was rejected."

Earlier this month the Bermuda Gas customer care representative won the women's Master division in the 'Sir' Stanley Burgess 5K race and she is confident she can conquer the soon to be century-old Bermuda Day Marathon Derby.

"I actually enjoyed running that race because my coach suggested I go out fast and have a good race," Mrs. Thorne recalled. "I was never a distance runner as a child. . .. I was a sprinter. But it was the first race I actually enjoyed because I was able to take off fast.

"I feel relaxed right now and excited about the race. My plan is to take off with the front runners because I don't want to get left behind in the back.

"Every year I watch the race and say I am going to run but never prepare for it. But this year I have kept my training up and I have ran this distance before.

"I feel that I am ready. I intend to run my own race at my own pace and this is probably going to be my first and last Marathon Derby."

• 'Sir' Stanley Burgess is credited with a total of 12 victories in the two versions of the Bermuda Day Marathon Derby, six of which were in the rival, so-called 'Second Group' race held between 1926 and 1943.

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