Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. I appreciate that for all of us the last two years coping with Covid-19 means that it is a very difficult time emotionally and for many it is also financially precarious, especially with the current inflationary pressures. Please do not feel obliged to donate, I want to share my jogging experience as I travel around the country visiting places that had a significance in my wife's all too short life. My plan is to post updates here after each run.

My wife Pat was diagnosed with Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) in 2012, 18 months after her retirement as a nurse in the NHS. This answered questions we had about many things that had taken place over the previous 5 years. Following her diagnosis her decline was rapid resulting in loss of speech, an inability to swallow and for the final months she was forced to use a wheelchair. Throughout her ordeal she was able to recognise all of us and was aware until very close to the end of her life. She died on 22^nd July 2017 aged just 66 years.

Since her diagnosis I have been working to increase awareness of early onset dementia and also to raise funds for dementia charities such as Alzheimer's Research UK who kindly posted our story on their blog in 2017 (https://www.dementiablog.org/eight-phases-of-ftd/).

Running Down Dementia asks people to run, jog or walk a distance of their own choice to raise fund for dementia research and boost awareness of the impact dementia has in our society. This year it is 10 years since Pat's diagnosis and 5 years since her death; therefore I have decided that I will jog five 10k races and ten 5k parkruns, a total of 100k, from Edinburgh in the north to Godalming in the south. I will be starting in Liverpool with a double header over the weekend of 14/15 May, the 45^th anniversary of our first meeting at a midwives' party when we were both studying in the city. The final event will be the Middlesbrough 10k on Teesside which has been our home since 1985.

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