I’m running 5 miles every day in December for the Bone Cancer Research Trust in memory of Abe Vincent. 

Abe was my cousins’ cousin. You know your cousins’ cousins. They’re the people you stand next to in family photos. (Height order ones, according to ancient Vincent custom.) 

You hear about their lives a lot, through the family grapevine.

You’re not supposed to hear that after their fresher year, when they break their leg playing football, the X-ray shows up something unexpected. That their leg needs amputating and they’re starting chemo. That they’re learning how to walk again, getting stuck back into their degree. That a routine check shows the cancer is back. 

I never got the time to get to know Abe properly: he was the baby of his gang and I was the eldest of mine. All I know is that for everyone that I love who loved him too, five Decembers without him is five too many. 

Raising money for the Bone Cancer Research Trust in Abe’s memory means others might get the time he should have had. 

Abe and I have the same awesome aunt: Annemarie. She did the December challenge back in 2014 as Abe started what would be his final round of chemo. 

Without her in my life, running would have always felt like something I couldn’t do. I joined in for her last few runs in 2014. Five years on, I’m aiming for 155 miles of my own, joining her in spirit as she does the December daily run challenge back home in Cov.

She's at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/annemarie-vincent-poole

Bung me some cash, or her: it’s all going to the same cause and it’s all in memory of the same much-missed young man. 

Thank you xxxx