Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

On the 9 October 2011, I will running the BUPA Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield.  It’s a 10km (approx 6.25miles) run from Sheffield City Centre, out to  Hillsborough and back again.  As you will no doubt know, my running experience is very limited and I’ve never attempted anything like this in my life before.  The furthest I’ve ever run was at school 15years ago where I used to be ‘forced’ to run the 4km cross country course.  These days, my running efforts are limited to chasing the odd misbehaving cow or sheep!!

You may also know that our son, Ethan, has been an outpatient at Sheffield Children’s Hospital for several years investigating a problem with his back which is related to a condition he has.  If you are a parent you’ll know how worrying it is when there is something wrong with your child.  For that reason I have decided to raise money by way of sponsorship of my 10km run, to support the Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity.  If you can spare any money to show your support it would be greatly appreciated by both myself, and the staff and patients at Sheffield Children’s Hospital.

I have Mr Robert Birds (along with a few others who did the persuading) to thank for getting me to enter this race.  Rob is running for Cancer Research and he and I have decided to ‘team up’ our run campaigns.  As you may know, Rob is a life-long, die-hard Liverpool FC fan.  Conversely, I am a Manchester United fan.  As a sign of thanks to all those that agree to sponsor us, we’ve agreed that if we raise £500 each (or £1000 between us) Rob will run the race in Manchester United shirt and I will run the race in a Liverpool Shirt.  If you’re a fan of any football team, you’ll know what it will mean to us to have to run the race in the shirt of our rival teams so please give what you can to help make our worst nightmare happen!!

I know money is tight for everyone at the moment, so if you can’t afford to support my cause then I will not be offended in the slightest.  We’ll be looking for support in other ways too – just some words of encouragement, support in Sheffield on the day of the race or maybe come training with us!!??  If you can spare some money to support this worthy cause though, even the smallest amount will be greatly appreciated.  And don’t forget to ‘gift aid’ your donation if you’re a UK tax payer so its worth even more to the charity at no extra cost to you!