Setting off to Spain from Skipton on 1st April, 9am Town Hall, come along and wave us off!

Training is going well so far, just got back from 2 weeks practice in sunny but cold Spain and it has built my confidence on the road no end! I now feel more aggressive while riding. Still suffering from painful stomach cramps at times which is a bit annoying, but no pain no gain!

Hello there, here is 21 years crammed in to a few paragraphs!

My name is Deborah Smith at the age of 14 I was taken into hospital with apparent anaemia, I received many tests and a 9 pint blood transfusion and then suffered a huge seizure that put me in intensive care and a coma for 2 days.

I was transfered to St James' Hospital in Leeds where further tests were carried out only to discover that my kidneys were failing, I was given different experimental treatments to try and save them, these were unsucessful and yet again suffered a huge seizure. I awoke from another coma 3 days later on my 15th Birthday only to find myself attached to a dialysis machine, dialysis carried on for a further year at St James', 3 days a week, 3 hours each session.

The call came late one afternoon, while my Mum was making Tea, that a possible donor kidney had been found. I was taken to the transplant ward where, what seemed like a litre, of blood was taken for compatability testing with the donor kidney. The matching was sucessful and the day after I had the transplant, everything went better than expected and I was home nine days later!

It will be my 20th anniversary on 29th April 2012, and to celebrate my husband, Phil, and I are cycling to the Costa Blanca in Spain, approx 1400 miles, please be aware that i'm not a cycling enthusiast and havn't really done much cycling ever, which makes this an even greater challenge for myself and a bigger reason for your support.

All money raised will go directly to the NKF, we are meeting acommodation and travelling costs ourselves.

Thanks to all at Wharfedale Farmers Mart for their kind donations and all the help from Alison who has collected £405.50 so far!