Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I selected Prudential Ride London as my next endurance challenge to raise funds for the Breathing Matters charity, which I have supported for 3 years now.  My father died in 2013 from Pulmonary Fibrosis, which is a devastating disease.  The lungs develop scarring, often for an unknown reason, making it increasingly difficult to breathe.  We found that there had been very little research undertaken to understand the causes and potential treatments for this terrible condition.

Breathing Matters was set up to raise awareness of interstitial lung disease, and to support research to find better ways to diagnose and treat these respiratory diseases.

It has been a complicated challenge to say the least!  To make it even harder I decided to build up my own bike.  I had a beautiful black and gold Mercian frame that was a lovely gift to me in my University days.  It had never been built into a bike.  I am fortunate to have a great friend who so kindly put it all together for me from the components that I selected - even building the wheels up!  It was mainly completed by October 2015.

I gently started training, I am super slow and needed to develop the appropriate cycling muscles.  I then found out that I had been allocated a place in the event on 10 February!  It was both an exciting and a daunting prospect, and I recognised there was a lot of work to do.  I started to set out a training plan to achieve what seemed like the impossible!

My training then took a major blow on 15 February when I was knocked over by a car as I was walking through a car park.  Fortunately my injuries were relatively minor, although I am still undergoing treatment and they are not fully resolved.  I really thought I would have to miss out on taking part in the event this year.

However, I have decided to give it my best shot.  My experience in raising funds for Breathing Matters has been that the pain and effort that I put myself through is nowhere near as hard as it can be for some people with Pulmonary Fibrosis just trying to live their daily lives.

I am grateful for any support you can give to spur me on and to support vital research into this disease!

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