"I am not a runner. I have never been particularly active and that's why this is a big challenge for me.”

If, a year ago, someone had told Claire Simpson that she would not only run the eight miles from her Guiseley home to work in Bradford city centre, but that she’d take on a marathon, she'd have dismissed them as crazy.

“I’d have laughed,” says the 28-year-old Telegraph & Argus journalist. “I barely did any exercise. I was a member of a gym, but I hardly ever went.”

Yet now she is giving her once-neglected trainers a good run for their money, pounding the pavements every day for a year to reach her 1,000-mile target, including taking part in organised 10K runs. Getting firmly into her stride, she is now in training for the Liverpool Half-Marathon this Sunday and Edinburgh Marathon in May.

And it is all in aid of a charity close to her heart, raising money for a cause which is helping thousands of children and adults in developing countries.

Claire, who grew up in Wilsden, was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, a condition which leaves the mouth and nose mis-shaped and causes difficulty in eating and talking.

With the condition not detectable by scan, as it is now, Claire’s mum Sue, spoke in a T&A article at the time of her reaction on seeing her newborn daughter: “It’s visibly shocking and that’s the worst part of it. A baby’s face is the first thing people look at. You can’t cover it up.”

The condition – which happens when the tissue forming the roof of the mouth fails to join before birth – can be successfully treated, especially if conducted soon after birth or in early childhood.

For Claire, treatment began when she was just four months old. Within three years, thanks to the skills of expert plastic surgeons in Bradford, her face had been transformed. Since that first operation, she has gone on to have 18 more, the latest just four years ago.

Across the world, one in 700 babies is born with a cleft lip or palate – about 1,000 a year in the UK – yet not all are fortunate enough to have access to specialised, life-changing treatment.

That is why Claire is aiming to raise as much as she can for Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft charity, which provides free, life-changing surgery to children.

When Claire turned 28 last June, she pledged that over the year she would run 1,000 miles – nearly three miles every day. And she has stuck to that, so far running more than 700 miles and raising more than £1,700 – more than she anticipated.

“I want to raise as much as I can to help,” she says. “Without treatment, children and adults can become cast out of society – they often aren’t allowed to go to school, have jobs or get married.

“There is little awareness of why it happens – sufferers are believed to be cursed, and some even blame the condition on a full moon during pregnancy. The charity travels round and educates and trains local surgeons to operate for free.”

She adds: “It is like a barrier that can be lifted, and help people to be accepted by society and to feel more confident.”

Claire knows how lucky she has been and is grateful to the skills of the surgeons and orthodontists who have treated her.

With each operation, Claire – who has bilateral cleft lip and palate, meaning both conditions occur on both sides – saw improvements, and with that her confidence increased. Yet, happy-go-lucky by nature, she has always looked on the bright side.

“When I was young, I didn’t really worry. I was aware that other people didn’t have operations, but I saw myself as special. I would go into hospital and get ‘magic gas’, and then wake up and get fussed over and brought presents. And I got out of lessons at school when I had to attend appointments – it was all quite exciting.”

A former pupil at Parkside Middle School and Bingley Grammar School, she was never bullied or teased by other children.

“I had the most major operation when I was 18,” she says. “That was to reposition my top jaw. I had to wear a head frame for three months. I was at an age where all I wanted to do was go out with my friends.”

That operation changed the shape of Claire’s face. “My face had grown disproportionately. The top jaw was set quite far back and this operation and the frame corrected that bit by bit.”

Claire’s close family has always been there for her. “My mum and dad have been through a lot more than I have,” says Claire. “When I was young, I didn’t really know what was going on, but they had all the worry.”

Running with her boyfriend Andy and her friends, Claire has been out in all weathers. “There have been a couple of occasions when it was all icy and slushy, when I had to run on a treadmill,” she says.

Her progress can be followed on her blog, in which she describes how she has fared each day.

Claire’s mum Sue says: “We had hundreds of hospital appointments and consultations throughout Claire’s childhood with the plastic surgeon, orthodontist, maxillo-facial surgeon and speech therapist. It just became a way of life, and everyone was always so positive and helpful.

“The feeling I remember most from this time was the sense of anxiety during the operations which were changing Claire’s outward appearance – the child that came out of the operating theatre didn’t look like the child that went in, although, of course, it was always for the better.”

Claire is now looking forward to the Edinburgh Marathon in May, which she is running with Andy.

“My family will be coming to cheer me on,” she says. She is also holding a party on Saturday, June 29, at Bradford and Bingley Rugby Club.

To donate, visit www.claireruns365.co.uk, or www.justgiving.com/claireruns365. For more on the charity, visit www.smiletrain.org.uk.