Just to let you know that we both managed to finish, and to say a huge thank you to you all for your fantastic support. Your generosity was an inspiration to us and the money that you have donated has gone to a truly worthwhile cause.

The real inspiration for you and for us is Dan.

For those of you reading this that aren’t aware of our reasons for asking for your support in running the London Marathon for “The Dan James Trust supporting Spinal Research” we have given a brief outline of Dan’s circumstances below by way of an introduction.

We are launching our sponsorship effort on March 12th because that is exactly 1 year since Dan and his family’s life changed forever. On Monday March 12th Dan was just like thousands of 22 year olds, full of life, hope, excitement and dreams. His life at university was full, active and successful, surrounded by fantastic mates with the promise of employment in construction management if his rugby career had not continued to blossom, or maybe he would have just upped and travelled for a few years, maybe to Australia where he had already been twice in his 22 years. Whatever he chose to do he would have done it with his usual good humour and lovely nature that have made him the loveable young man that he has grown in to. He truly was on the threshold of life and he lived his life to the full and embraced every opportunity that came his way.

On Friday 9 March he had played rugby for England Students, beating France at Oxford. On the evening of Monday the 12th he was training with his club side Nuneaton when he suffered a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) whilst practising a scrum. He dislocated his C6/C7 vertebrae trapping his spinal cord and becoming tetraplegic in a split second. This means that Dan has lost the complete use of his body from the chest down. Through his immense courage and determination he has managed to regain a little bit of use in his fingers but unfortunately this appears to be the extent of his recovery.

And that as they say in the medical world is that!!!! Literally. There is nothing else that anybody can do for Dan or the hundreds of other spinal cord injury patients. And that is our reason for asking you to sponsor us to run the London Marathon. To the best of our knowledge the spinal cord is the only part of the human body that cannot be repaired. The only way this situation can be improved is by people like you giving money to charities such as Spinal Research (www.spinal-research.org). Huge progress has been made in recent years and human trials will take place in the near future but more money is needed to take the research to the next level and hopefully a breakthrough in the treatment of this most tragic of injuries.

Why should you sponsor us? Just look around at your own family and friends, your son, daughter, brother, sister, niece, nephew, cousin, best mate, team mate or work mate and try to imagine the impact on theirs and your lives if in one split second they were paralysed. To be honest no matter how hard you try you will never be able to imagine the level and intensity of suffering and horror at seeing a loved one go through what Dan and his family and friends have gone through over the last 12 months.

Having experienced such tragedy is the reason why the Dan James Trust is asking you to sponsor us to raise as much money as possible for Spinal Research. Your donation will make a massive difference to the life of a 22year old and their family in the future. Any money that you can give will go towards finding a treatment for SCI.

Please give as generously as you can to give future sufferers something that Dan has never realistically been given, hope. Surely someone in his position deserves, at the very least, to have some sort of hope.