We made it we made it we made it !! Kate's wittered on for years about how pleasant it would be to cycle through Normandy and arrive in Paris for a lavish lunch, 'it all looks pretty flat from the train - how hard can it be?' She managed to persuade Pippa to tag along and then Matt felt honour bound to follow in the support vehicle ( well we can't be expected to fix our own punctures can we?) Then Edel heard about it and counted herself in. Les Trois Mosquetaires ou quelque chose..... In the last month or so we've realised we'd better get some actual training in or there'll be oeuf sur le visage and we don't want that! The more we've thought about it and as the time draws closer, as it feels more real, so our conviction has grown that we very much want to dedicate our efforts to Ralph's memory : our colleague and friend, the most decent, caring, genuine and giving person you could ever meet. Ralph worked part-time at Richmond Physio as a massage therapist from 2004 until 2007.The rest of his time was taken up with his degree course in Physiotherapy at Brunel. In all the time he worked alongside us he was consistently bright and cheerful, hard working, conscientious and a thoroughly decent chap. Ralph should have been running in the marathon this year but he died suddenly last September, while running in the Nottingham half marathon. It was completely out of the blue and deeply shocking, we were speechless, everyone was totally at a loss. Ralph's death was attributed to a problem with the electrical transmission in his heart muscle and is classified as Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. CRY funds research into this, and provides support to families. We are raising money for CRY because we know their support and help has been crucial for Ralph's family in what must have been unimaginably desperate times. We remember Ralph with so much affection but he also had a great sense of humour. There's no doubt that he would be highly amused at the thought of us pedalling all the way to Paris and that's the image of him we'll be travelling with. We're going to make it a really good trip to Paris, we're going to do our best, we're going to enjoy it and we're going to do the whole thing in memory of Ralph.

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