Having lived, worked and been a part of this wonderful country for almost 6 years, the devastation witnessed here on March 11th truly shocked me to my heart.  I felt numb.  And as the images and video footage came in, like so many people here in Japan and around the world, I wanted to do something to help.

My friend Tom Cole, who works at iTTTi Japan with me, had the idea of doing a charity run, and with the help of my friends Mike Maher King (Smile Kids Japan) and Avalyn Beare (and others at AJET) they set up 5toSurvive: Running for Japan http://5tosurvive.org/ where anyone can do a 5km run to raise money for the earthquake and tsunami relief efforts.

I immediately got involved and my geordie mate Dave Campbell said he'd give me 50 quid if I did it in a Newcastle top... Being a lifelong Boro fan, this is not something to be taken lightly!  But for the sake of the hundreds of thousands who need aid, I'd do it in a heartbeat - I'd even dress up as Kevin Keegan, bad 80's tight perm, short shorts an' all!

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Please sponsor me with what you can or set up a race in your own area :)

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