<p>Thanks for taking the time to visit&nbsp;our JustGiving page.</p> <p>Way back at the start of 2011, Jacquie was really motivated to get her knee fit after a serious injury and surgery, and Alister was hard in training for his first attempt at the London Marathon. Jacquie challenged herself to complete the Great North Swim, and to complete the summer adventures with the Great North Run. Alister was keen to complete his first marathon in a respectable time, and to end the summer racing season with a PB in the Great North Run.</p> <p>In April, Alister completed his marathon well within&nbsp;his target time of sub-4 hours (3 hours 57 minutes 19 seconds). On June 18th, Jacquie swam a mile in the waters of Windermere in a time of just under 36 minutes. Just to demonstrate that this was a summer for challenges, we both also completed our first triathlons (a mini-tri for Alister, who's working hard on his swimming, and a sprint tri, including a dip in the river Tees, for Jacquie). Our friends have already been very generous in their sponsorship for all of these events and many people have expressed a wish to show their support for our endeavours by donating to our charity. We've chosen what we think is a&nbsp;fantastic charity and extended this page to cover our combined efforts in 2011.</p> <p>We have chosen Acorns as our charity. Acorns is a West Midlands-based hospice caring for children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions and supporting their families. We chose this charity because Acorns helped the family of our good friend George Nicholson, whose little granddaughter Emily Hart was cared for by Acorns up until her death aged just 5 in 2006. George does a phenomenal job in fundraising for the hospice and we hope our support will help him bring in a huge total for the combined efforts of Team Acorns this summer.</p> <p>September 18th saw us both complete the Great North Run. The atmosphere was fantastic and Team Acorns did an incredible job. Alister completed the course in a new PB of 1.42.02 and Jacquie, still recovering from illness, was happy to get around in 2.19.39, her fastest GNR time to date.</p> <p>Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving &ndash; they&rsquo;ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they&rsquo;ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it&rsquo;s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.</p> <p>So please dig deep and donate now for a fantastic charity. And thank you for your generosity.</p> <p>Jacquie and Alister x</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>