Story
<p>Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.</p>
<p>See the end of this piece for how the race went. I have updated this site now the on-line results are available. </p>
<p>In early January I started to become seriously worried about Carol's health which seemed to be deteriorating by the day. After she struggled with exhaustion and shoulder pain (due to an enlarged spleen) through her last day's work as a practice nurse it wasn't long before a blood test revealed she had advanced Chronic Myeloid leukaemia. The next month of treatment controlled her leukaemia but her strength faded further and days were spent on either the sofa or bed. After four months treatment Carol is now 80% back to normal and is looking forward to enjoying the future again.</p>
<p>Due to the results of research and the courage of families prepared to undergo drug trials in the 1990's there are now treatments that have controlled this leukaemia in patients for more than 10 years. There are side effects and not everyone continues to respond to these drugs. We feel research that is currently underway at the Queen Elizabeth centre will be important to continue to give hope to people dependent on these drugs for the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>On 12th June I will be taking part in the Cure Leukaemia 10k (6.2 miles) run. Despite being 56 years old and having done the Shrop Doc base and car duty at the Princess Royal Hospital from midnight to 8am, I hope to be able to start the run at 10am and finish in the top 3 of the over 50's category. Last year the winning time was 42 minutes 12 seconds. The course does have a significant uphill slope for the last kilometer which is likely to stop me achieving my personal best from last year of 41.00 minutes on a flat course.</p>
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<p>THE RACE</p>
<p>Just to say it was a wet and cold race, and the first 20 runners after 1 km ran past 2 race marshalls who didn't know the proper route and let us run out of the park, over a cattle grid and down an urban road! The first couple of runners finally decided it couldn't be correct and turned round. At first it looked like you were supposed to get to a particular lampost and turn around but the rest of us soon got the idea! By the time we rejoined the course the great mass of runners behind us were ahead of us and we had to weave our way through and pick up our speed uphill to get back into some free space! A shame as our final distance run was about an extra 0.4 km on the 6.2 km. Anyhow that's all the excuses for my time of 44 minutes 28 seconds but I was still first for >50's and the second >50 was three and a half minutes slower! Thankfully Carol was having a much nicer time on Tresco, in the Isles of Scilly, celebrating my sister in law's 60th birthday, rather than waiting in the rain for me to finish the race!</p>
<p>The results are on www.cureleukaemia.co.uk if you click on "The Run" at the top of the page, and choose the 10k. I came 11th in the race out of 168 (much fewer entrants than last year.) If you have given me a donation, thank you very much, I have had tremendous support! If not you can still donate apparently on my page until September!! - it's all for a good cause.</p>
<p>Ps. For those that might be curious, the Shrop-Doc session kept me out on visits, to Bridgnorth and then Ditton Priors just to begin with. I got into my sleeping bag for 30 minutes before more work arrived and only managed another 15 minutes near the end of the session till we had another visit at 7.15am that kept me out till we returned to the Princess Royal Hospital at 8.10am. I didn't feel particularly sleepy till I had to drive home after the race! </p>