Thanks for taking the time to visit Alasdair, Alan and Steve's page.

There are a few reasons that we're taking on the Bleinheim Triathlon as a relay team. Firstly there's Steve. Steve's been trying to get me to run  a marathon with him for years. Jumping in a lake in a rubber suit is my messed up way of avoiding that. Alan - well Alan has a bike and he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if you know Steve, you know he runs. Lots. But legend has it he's never asked for sponsorship. Not even when he ran the Stirling Marathon (the Bloodwise Stirling Marathon!). So Steve's friends - you need to tot up all those miles over the years when you sponsor him.

One way or another all three of us have spent the last thirty years since our days in the Sixth Year chemistry labs at Balwearie High School in Kirkcaldy working to improve people's lives through science. Steve teaches the next generation of chemists. Alan is a doctor helping people with diabetes. And after a while in research, I've worked for medical research funding charities for nearly twenty years. That small class of seven people also produced another science teacher, a medicinal chemist who found new ways to formulate cancer drugs to make them work better, and a medical director for a pharmaceutical company, who finds ways to use effective drugs in different types of illness. Oh, and an explosives engineer, which is what every chemistry student really wants to be... Anyway, we all know how vital research is to helping the people who need it most - and I've always wanted to do something together to show that.

Right now I'm a Director at Bloodwise, the blood cancer research charity. Bloodwise has made a huge difference to people affected by blood cancer, whether its the children with leukaemia that Ian Botham started his walks for when I was a kid (when Bloodwise was called the Leukaemia Research Fund), or the many many adults I come across with different types of leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes, myeloproliferative neoplasms - and many more - all types of blood cancer. If you're lucky you don't know most of these names and never will. But 40,000 people hear one of them every year in the UK - as many people as ran the London Marathon this year.  250,000 people are living with a blood cancer today, and it's the 3rd biggest cause of cancer death - more than either breast cancer or prostate cancer.

All of us can make changes to our lives to reduce our risk of most types of cancer. But blood cancers can't be prevented, so research really is vital. The people I work with every day at Bloodwise fund research that develops new tests and treatments that improve care for people with blood cancer. And they work with NHS policy-makers and other partners to make sure the best treatments get to people with blood cancer as soon as possible. They write information about blood cancer in plain english, and they pick up the phone and talk to people to help them through the hard times. Last week I hear one of the researchers we fund talk about a test his laboratory had developed two years ago, then heard a parent my age with blood cancer talk about how that test had saved her life. 

All the money to do this comes from people like you. It can't happen without you - so please do what you can. (Or we'll send round Steve, and it'll be you jumping in the lake next year!)

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.