This Sunday I will be running the New York marathon. 

On July 6th this year I lay on the floor of St Mary’s Hospital ICU with my 34 year old sister as a trauma surgeon told her that her incredible, healthy, vibrant husband Eddy, the father of her two year old son, deeply special uncle to my two boys and much-loved member of our family, would never regain consciousness and was going to die. At 7:20am on a bright, sunny July 5th morning Eddy was on his way to work by motorbike, driving safely at less than 10mph in three lanes of queuing traffic on the M4 when he was hit at speed from behind by a van. Eddy's brain injuries were catastrophic and despite the incredible efforts of the emergency teams at the scene and at St Mary's, they were too devastating to survive. 

The ripple effect of devastation and pain and grief caused by one person’s lack of attention to the road is crippling to us right now. As we try and start to pick up the pieces for Ciara, Seren Ying Hei, Eddy's immediate family and our own, one of the ways we are trying to find a way through this shock and anger is to support Brake to help them seek to ensure less families and loved ones have to go through this in the future, by educating drivers about road safety and how serious distracted driving can be, and campaigning for harsher charging and sentencing under UK law.

I won't say my marathon training cycle has been ideal over the last couple of months, but our mantra right now is "What Would Eddy Do?" and I know that Eddy would crack on and run the bloody marathon, so that's what I am doing in memory of him and for my sister and Ying Hei.

Brake is a national charity working to prevent road death and injury and support those bereaved and injured in road crashes. 5 people die on our roads every day and hundreds more are serious injured. Visit www.brake.org.uk to find out more about their life-saving work, in particular the #RoadsToJustice campaign.