It's a sobering thought, but 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer over the course of their lifetime.

It's affected my family a number of times. My Grandma had it, my Auntie died from it, and my cousin Lyn was diagnosed with it a few years ago, and is still undergoing treatment.

In April this year, my wife, Nikki, was diagnosed with it too. She underwent an operation, and is currently half way through 8 courses of chemotherapy. It's tough going, but she's doing brilliantly well. When the chemo is completed in November, she'll have to undergo a further 5 weeks of radiotherapy. We're looking forward to the New Year, when our lives will get back to some sort of normality.

A few weeks ago, our youngest son Max, raised a lot of money for Breast Cancer Now by shaving his head in front of his whole school ( https://www.justgiving.com/maxsmith05/ )

I decided that I'd like to do something to help this very important charity, and as a head shave is out of the question for me (!), I decided upon this little challenge instead.

There are (almost) 5 Sundays this September, and on each one I'm going to run a Half Marathon proudly wearing my bright pink Breast Cancer Now running top and pink wig.

The last time I ran a half marathon was the Great North Run in September last year, so having done no training whatsoever, this should prove interesting to say the least !

The runs are as follows:

Sunday 30th August - Severn Bridge Half Marathon

Sunday 6th September - Kenilworth Half Marathon

Sunday 13th September .. The Great North Run

Sunday 20th September -- Cransley Half Marathon

Sunday 27th September - Cheltenham Half Marathon

I will update this page with results etc as I do each one.

If you can spare a few quid, then please consider donating it to this fantastic charity.

Thanks

Alan

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