In June 2021, I'm due to run the Derby Half Marathon, as my way of saying thank you to the incredible team at Derby Royal Hospital. In particular, the guys and girls at the Combined Day Unit, that's the Chemo ward, for those of you lucky enough not to know what the name means.   

I'm no runner, I'm not athletic by nature, I don't even particularly like exercise. Wind the clock back to February 2020, I became aware that something was starting happen in the world, as China was locked down with a mysterious virus. In my world, my Chemotherapy for stage 3 bowel cancer was being cut short. There was no point getting through the Cancer treatment to be defeated by COVID 19 after all. A vital but most unenjoyable experience. So I decided that if I made it through this process, I would do something positive as a feeble token of my thanks, for the efforts of others. Those nameless efforts ultimately, ensure that I now get to give my daughter a hug and kiss before bed, share a glass of wine and chat about our day's with my incredible wife, moan about the bills, complain about the weather and all the other stuff that we should, and do take for granted.  

As they say, 'in for a penny, in for a pound' so let’s up the stakes here. I’m now also running the London Marathon in October 2021, for a charity most dear to me, Bowel Cancer UK. They have been hit incredibly hard by the pandemic, making redundancies that will sadly have an impact on their productivity going forward, so they need all the support we can muster. 

Times are tough for lots of people at present, I figured a sponsored walk or cake sale wouldn't be enough to get people to donate for this worthy cause. Whether we admit it or not we all suffer to some degree with sympathy fatigue. As many of us are seemingly bombarded with requests for sponsorship. So here’s my pledge, if your kind and generous enough to sponsor me you deserve, blood, sweat and tears and I will not disappoint you.   

Thank you and much love.