On the 14th September 2019 I had a heart attack.

I had no known underlying health issues. Just the weekend before I was mountaineering in Snowdonia with friends. I felt great. As the cardiologist put it: 'Sometimes people like you have heart attacks. It's rare, but we do see it.'

Being told I'd had a heart attack was devastating, but over the weeks and months that followed I slowly started to get more active: making short walks to the shops, attending cardiac rehab and then low impact circuit training with the local cardiac club (I was the youngest there by a few years!). A year down the line I think I'm doing pretty well. Whether or not I'll ever get up a mountain again remains to be seen...

For now a walk up the hills of the Peak District is a big enough challenge - and 10 miles is the furthest I'll have managed in over a year. Slow and steady will be the order of the day - but I'm sure I'll be shattered at the end of it.

I'm raising money for the British Heart Foundation and I'd be so grateful for your support. The BHF has helped halve the number of people dying from heart and circulatory disease in the UK but sadly every day hundreds of people lose their lives. It's only thanks to support from people like us that the BHF can create new treatments and discover new cures. Every pound helps, so please give what you can to help me hit my target.

Cheers,

Dean