Hello Dear Friend,

I am running in the Great North Run 2008. Yep, really.

It's being held in Newcastle upon Tyne on October the 5th. I am hoping for a time of 1hr 45min - my boyish good looks in a rough northern sea port should encourage swift progress.

In addition to helping me shed several years of lager and bacon sandwiches, any money raised will be donated to fight Ataxia. This is the charity chosen by my friend Sophie Smith who suffers from Friedrichs Ataxia. Please convince yourselves that I'm not pocketing the cash by having a look at www.ataxia.org.uk. As neurological disorders go, it's a bas*ard.

Your money will help fund treatment research and assist sufferers in their day to day lives. Anyone who's seen Sophie take the 10 minutes just to get herself and her chair into a car know's that this is a rubbish thing to live with.

Never having tried to raise money before I'm not sure how this is going to go and I've set an arbitary total of £1000. Please just donate whatever you want, any money you give will be very, very gratefully received.

For those of you thinking "it's only a half marathon", first of all you're correct, well done, secondly appreciate where I'm starting from. I haven't done any serious excercise since 2004 apart from turning up at work on an almost daily basis and hauling the TV remote from the sofa to change channel. So yes, it's a real challenge.

Enough already! Thanks for taking the time and effort to read through all this, once again anything you can spare would be great and if you've got any friends who're a soft touch please bully them into donating their lunch money.

Better get training.

Much love, Jon

Oh and....
Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Ataxia UK 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.