Dear all,

We're both running the 2008 London Marathon and all money raised will go to the PSP Association. *

Sophie has never run a marathon before, and the very fact that she's doing it is reason enough for everyone who knows her to shower her with vast piles of cash.

Jamie ran the Edinburgh marathon last year and the very fact that he's stupid enough to run another one is reason enough for everyone who knows him to shower him with vast piles of cash.

If you know both Sophie and Jamie then don't be mean - donate twice as much! (The alternative would be you getting twice as pestered with twice as many emails, texts and phone calls so please be generous!)

If any of you have run a marathon before, you'll know how much it hurts and we hope you'll be kind enough to donate with all the empathy of a fellow Soviet comrade surviving Barbarossa.

If you've never run one before, try and imagine how much all those training runs hurt, not to mention those pesky 26.2 miles themselves. Here is some idea of how much it hurts: A lot. No, really, A LOT. A bit more than you just imagined. Now a bit more than that.

Now here's a little more about the cause.

PSP is a rare degenerative disorder involving the gradual deterioration and death of selected areas of the brain. It entails the progressive death of neurons or nerve endings in the brainstem and basal ganglia above the nuclei in the brain (hence ‘supra’nuclear). This is the area that controls balance, movement, vision (particularly upgaze and downgaze) speech and the ability to swallow, hence the main symptoms, some of which may not appear or progress at all or until later in the disease. Recent research has indicated a prevalence of at least 5 to 6 per 100,000 of population (the equivalent of some 3,500 living patients across the UK), though leading neurologists consider this figure to be seriously low, estimating the true figure across the UK to be up to 15 per 100,000, (10,000 living patients) many misdiagnosed and many, particularly amongst the elderly, left undiagnosed.

No one really knows, though the mechanism of its progression, the areas within the brain in which the neurons die and the resulting neuro fibrillary tangles of the protein ‘tau’ deposited in the brain (a similar process to that occurring in Alzheimer’s Disease, but in a different part of the brain) are increasingly understood, as are the genetics involved. These already provide answers to the cause of some neurodegenerative diseases. There is now known to be a complex genetic component to PSP, which predisposes about a third of the UK population to it (though with a very low level of risk), but the disease itself appears to be triggered environmentally and selectively, perhaps by any one of a variety of neurotoxins, or even by a blow on the head.Like other neurodegenerative diseases, PSP gets worse over time. The average life expectancy of a patient is some seven years, the last two of which can be wheelchair or bedbound, but it is a very individual disease and with good care, many patients often live well into their seventies and beyond.

For more information, please visit www.pspeur.org

Finally, because our target is quite a large amount of money, we're holding a fundraising evening in the first week of April at a pub in London (an email will follow). This will be a fabulously devilish quiz and a raffle and we're going to charge a small £5 quiz entry fee. So if you think you might be able to attend that, by all means deduct £5 from your justgiving.com donation - we didn't want to suddenly spring that on you after you'd so generously donated your last  pounds.

Please dig deep. Don't just look at how much the person last on the list has sponsored and think 'oh that'll do'. (unless it's £500 in which case that's perfectly acceptable). Think about the weeks and months of training with the brass monkeys of winter and think about the good cause you're supporting. Thank you!

J & Soph x

p.s. Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor me: The PSP Association will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

* We are not running to raise money to buy ourselves Portable Playstation consoles.