Thank you very much for visiting my JustGiving page. I'm raising money for Coeliac UK, a charity whose work I've benefitted from enormously over the last few years. This is my chance to pay them back.

I was diagnosed with coeliac disease in 2010. If you have it, your immune system reacts badly to eating gluten (wheat, barley or rye: bread, pasta, cereals, cake, biscuits, pastry, sausages, soy sauce, most processed foods). A year ago, the doctors discovered I have a rare form called Type 2 Refractory Coeliac which manifests itself with a lymphoma in my small intestine. I'm one of just 30 people in the UK who are currently being treated for it; I'm on quite a lot of drugs every day to try to stop the lymphoma becoming cancerous. At the moment, the signs are good but it makes life a bit tricky - and fairly worrying at times.

One in a hundred people has regular coeliac - but less than a quarter of them is ever diagnosed. That means there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who have hideous tummy pains and constant diarrhoea, and just don't know why. Without being too disgusting, I had "toilet issues" pretty much every day for 13 years before I was diagnosed. Hopefully, I hid it well and you never noticed (it explains why I was so skinny though!). There is no cure. The disease never goes away. The only treatment is a gluten-free diet, which is not easy. Firstly, you miss out on loads of delicious food. Secondly, it's incredibly difficult to eat normally; you police everything, which gets quite wearing, and turns you in to a nightmare dinner party guest. It takes the pleasure out of eating in a restaurant - there's often only one thing you can order (usually a salad), and even then you have to accept probable contamination in the kitchen.

And that's why I've taken on this year's London Marathon - my contribution to make life easier for thousands of people. Coeliac UK is a small charity but it does amazing work: from helping people when they're first diagnosed, teaching them the way, running support groups, and campaigning aimed at restaurants and food manufacturers to help them understand and make changes to their processes. Since I was first diagnosed 4 years ago, things have got much better - I am no longer restricted to (rather disgusting, let's be honest) gluten-free alternatives. But the most important work they do is research to find a cure: hopefully, one day, there'll be a vaccine that I can be given that will make the whole thing just go away. That would be nice.

I really appreciate you reading this far. I know loads of people ask for sponsorship at this time of year, all for excellent causes. Coeliac UK is a tiny charity in comparison to many of them; last year, just 10 people who ran the marathon raised money for them; they receive no funding - and rely solely on donations. If you feel you've got a few quid you could spare, I would be enormously grateful. It would make the late-night training in the wind and rain a lot more bearable. 

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And the heart of my bottom. Rob xx