Thanks for coming to my page!  You probably already know what I'm doing, who I'm doing it with, and why, but if not, here's the shortish version.

My wonderful friend, mentor and workplace mum Mo passed away in February.  She was someone I directly owed my teaching career to and was a constant inspiration with her caring spirit and an extraordinary vocation to education.  She was also the only person who ever successfully made me pour away a lovely cup of freshly ground and brewed coffee because I shouldn't drink in a lab - that was the respect she commanded!

There was quickly a strong feeling amongst my friends at school that we should do something BIG to raise money in her memory, and getting a bunch of the most unlikely and unfit 'runners' and doing a 10k together seemed just about crazy enough to qualify.  

So I signed up for the Jane Tomlinson Leeds 10k, bought some shorts, and downloaded a training app for my phone.  My first day of training involved six individual minutes of not-quite-jogging interspersed with two-minute intervals of barely walking.  That's where I'm coming from to try and do this!

I had never previously fully appreciated the work that organisations like Sue Ryder do, and the support they give to so many cancer sufferers, but I'm so excited to have the chance to do something to help them out. (And I will be doing so financially too - see below)

You know me well enough to know how far out of my comfort zone this challenge is.  In fact, I was training for nearly two months before I dared to set this page up, because I was terrified of asking for donations before I'd convinced myself I'd be able to get fit enough in time!

As a little added extra, because I'm expecting to shift a few pounds in the process of getting ready for this race, I'm going to donate my weight and add it to the total.  So if I drop a stone, I'll chuck an extra fourteen quid in.  Maybe I'll do better than that.

Well done for getting this far.  If you'd like to donate to support what we're doing, I'd be so grateful.  If you're a St Mary's person and you'd like to support the whole team, head over to this page instead:

http://www.justgiving.com/Team-Teachers

Thank you for reading! :)