In under 50 days time i will putting on my new shiny trainers and running the Nottingham Half marathon. I say new shiny trainers because i only purchased them on 10th August and i haven't been running for over a decade. I've still got a little bit of time to get some training in so that they look less shiny!

For those of you who know me I am usually sat on a bike pedaling for hours on end and seem to cope well with that, this is going to be a whole new and I suspect painful experience for me, but a worthwhile one.

So why am i doing it?

Worldwide, over 30,000 children each year are diagnosed with cancer of the brain or central nervous system. In the UK, brain tumours are the largest cause of children’s cancer deaths, yet only 2% of cancer research funding has been focussed on this area.

On average, children in the UK wait up to three times longer for a brain tumour diagnosis than those in other developed countries. This can make long-term survivors up to ten times more likely to suffer disability. We need to improve our understanding of childhood brain tumours

Real progress is being made in diagnosing earlier and improving survival rates but there is so much more that our leading edge researchers want to do to improve this further. So putting on my running kit and running a half marathon to raise money for more research to help speed up diagnosis, get new and better treatments readily available and help more children and their families deal with cancer