A DALGETY Bay woman is going the extra mile after suffering from a stroke aged just 31.

Alison Scott, a watch manager for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, will be taking on the London Marathon for the Stroke Association on April 22 – even though she hates running!

The charity has come very close to her heart after her mum and father-in-law also suffered from strokes. She told the Press: “I feel like stroke is all around me, yet there are so few people who seem to know that it can happen to anyone at any time. When it happened to me it was very scary. I thought I might be having a stroke because I knew the signs but I just kind of put it to the side because of my age. Thankfully I was in the house and my husband was there. I was sitting on the coach listening to the radio and it sounded like it had gone dull in my left ear.

“I got up to turn the sound up and fell to the floor. It sounds strange, but it felt like my left hand belonged to someone else when I saw it lying there. It’s almost like when your leg is dead, and you can’t move it.”

Alison stayed in hospital for a week after the incident and was told she had a stroke due to a hole in her heart and a blood clot in her leg that had worked its way up to her brain.

“Apparently a quarter of people have a hole in their heart,” the mother of two said. “I was young, relatively fit, in the fire service, so had quite a few medicals but it had never come to light before,” she explained.

“A lot of people I was on the ward with were in their 80s, so it was very odd. I had only been married a couple of years so it’s not what you’re expecting to happen to you as a young woman.”

Alison’s heart was sealed up but in 2014 her health took another turn when she was discovered to have a portal vein thrombosis due to her blood condition.

A blood clot had developed that was the size of a tennis ball and the watch manager was put on lifelong treatment to help thin her blood.

Despite all the challenges Alison, now 43, has dealt with, she’s determined to run and said: “My mum Agnes had a stroke three and a half years ago and her movement has been very debilitated since. She can’t be left alone, and my dad pretty much takes care of her now. She was only in her late 60s when this happened. It was also the same for my father-in-law Billy. He had to live in a home after the stroke and unfortunately passed away quite recently.”

Alison set up this challenge without any prior running experience but wants to complete the marathon for the charity.

“I saw an interview with Chris Evans about training for a marathon and he said it was easy!” she added. “I thought well I could do that and signed myself up.

“I am definitely not a runner! I managed to run 22 miles last week and I don’t know how I did it! I’m very nervous because I’m just exhausted but everyone tells me the support of the crowds will get me through it.”

To sponsor Alison, go to justgiving.com/fundraising/alison-scott75