Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page and reading my story. 

Last year I said I'd take a year off from fundraising, but something amazing happened this year that made me change my mind. Many of you are familiar with my story, the very long road to diagnosis, my inability to tolerate anti-inflammatory meds to treat my AS and years of constant pain in my spine and other joints. AS is a rotten disease, an auto-immune form of arthritis that usually starts in your early teens or twenties. I had back pain from the age of 8, then a lot of other joint problems by the age of 14. I was declared 'too young to suffer from joint problems' and from then on, right through to my early forties when I was finally diagnosed, it was implied (without the benefit of any tests, x-rays or MRI's) that the pain was all in my head. All I knew was that if I exercised hard, the pain eased up at least until I stopped.

I'm not unique. Sadly, my story is similar to that of so many others with this condition. In years gone by, women in particular have had a dreadful time getting a diagnosis as this was regarded as a disease that mostly affected men. Thankfully, this thinking has changed (although some medics can still be 'old fashioned' in their thinking!) and NASS continue to spread this vital message. Years of not knowing why you're in so much pain and being unable to rest or sleep properly really takes its toll on not only you as a person, but on your entire family. Over the years I sustained a lot of joint damage, not helped by over-exercising and the hypermobility problems that I also have (which is common with AS) which resulted in 19 orthopaedic ops.  I'd like to think I'm a little more sensible now and took up long-distance walking a few years ago - it worked, no ops for the past four years :)

NASS is a tiny charity run by only 6 people who get no government funding at all. They work tirelessly to educate and inform medical professionals of all kinds to try and improve the treatment of patients as well as the current average diagnosis time which still stands at 8 to 10 years. They also provide support whenever needed for AS patients as well support over 90 local branches who provide patients with weekly physiotherapy and hydrotherapy sessions (I run our local Woking and Weybridge Branch). They also constantly campaign for better treatment for patients as well as fund research. Those six people truly move mountains for us. 

So what happened to change my mind on fundraising this year? In January I was fortunate enough to start a new treatment called anti-TNF. For me personally it has made a huge difference. The pain will never disappear entirely, but it's so much less. Without NASS campaigning (and succeeding) for this treatment to be made available for all AS patients, this improvement would never have happened, so the least I can do is try and raise some more funds so that they can continue their fantastic work :) 


Not only am I taking on the Isle of Wight 2017 Challenge (106km of coastal path, hopefully within 24 hours), but also I hope to be able to run my first mile in over 40 years without stopping durung The Westminster Mile on 28th May, and run at least part of the Hawkesbury Upton 5k on June 17th. Then comes the very hilly 50km Chiltern Challenge on July 15th and lastly in 2017 the Saharan Challenge (back to back marathons in Morocco) on October 13th & 14th. I already completed the Action Challenge Winter Walk in London in January this year in endless pouring rain - 20km in 3:13 as a warm up for this year's challenges, but didn’t start fundraising until March. So, my fundraising tear will finish with the 2018 Winter Walk in London on January 14th 2018. A stress fracture in my ankle sustained 45km into the Isle of Wight Challenge made things much more difficult in 2017, but I’m absolutely determined to finish all my challenges :) 

As ever Richard, my rock, will be right there by my side through all the continuing training and the challenges too :) 

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