Our story has changed but our spirit hasn't...

On 10 Dec 2009 I was sitting in the Forum Cafe Bar - Sheffield (Devonshire Street). To the outside world I was just another customer eating a burger and drinking tea. Inwardly I was the nervous wreck fiancé to Toni Stringer (now Lindley) who at this time was undergoing major surgery to remove a rare form of cancer from her abdomen (known as a retroperitoneal sarcoma). Trying (and failing) to distract myself from what was happening a couple of hundred meters up the road – not an easy task. I mean how do you plan a distraction whilst your wife to be is in surgery....

Things didn’t exactly go to plan, after 6 hours we were given news the operation needed to be stopped to give Toni’s body time to rest. 36 hours later having been in a medically induced coma Toni was having her second operation to stem internal bleeding. This was not an easy time...but Toni being the battler she is came through the other end.

During this time and the months after the Cavendish centre were there for us. They have helped us live a rich life. And the years that followed have been filled with amazing moments and a lot to be happy about, one wedding (http://vimeo.com/43182680,http://tink-kt.blogspot.co.uk/), one child (the beautiful Ellie Rose) and many amazing experiences in between.

In 2011 with a desire to give myself a life challenge (that was merely scratch the surface of Toni's challenge) I ran the 2 Oceans Ultra marathon a 56km race in Cape Town South Africa. It was never my intention to raise any money but whilst training people kept asking me why I was doing it. When I told them they simply wanted to donate – so I created a justgiving page and with the help of friends, family and loads of people I didn’t even know raised over£2,000 for the Cavendish centre – the place that kept us sane through this whole process.

Read how they helped us here:

http://cavcare.org.uk/news/stories/kurts-story/

http://cavcare.org.uk/news/stories/tonis-story/

They are here for us as a family once more. Their support never goes away...you don’t need to see them to know they are there and now in this new stage of our life we will no doubt call upon them to help us recalibrate out lives and figure out what each new chapter means for all of us...without them we would not be the people we are today.

So with a need for another challenge  we are going bigger, on May 31 2015 I will be running the Comrades Ultra marathon (http://www.comrades.com/). The Comrades Marathon is the world's oldest and largest Ultra marathon run over a distance of approximately 89 km (56) milesbetween the coastal city of Durban and the capital of Kwazulu-Natal Province of South Africa, Pietermaritzburg. I have been told I am likely to be on my feet for 11hrs.

Keep up to date with the training via twitter (@coachdeveloper) with the hashtag #runwithkurt.

How can you help?

You can donate on this site or by text, send KURT89 £3 or £5 or £10 to 70070

Thank you for reading

Kurt, Toni and Ellie Rose