Hi there,

How many people do you know with heart problems?  If the answer to that question is 'none', pause for a second or two and appreciate your amazing good fortune.

I am lucky enough to have a healthy heart, and the least I can do is use it to help combat this scourge that stalks and torments the 7+ million people living with heart disease in the UK, and kills one person every four minutes.

People like my family. My maternal grandparents both died of heart failure, my grandad aged only 48. My only living close relatives, my mum and my sister, have high blood pressure and heart-related health issues. My sister's husband had a heart attack in January. My best friend lost her older sister to heart problems and her mum has atrial fibrillation. Heart disease surrounds me.

So, on 16th June I am cycling the BHF London to Brighton, 54 miles from, well, London to Brighton. Less than a week later, on 22nd June, I am running a 53-mile ultra-marathon on the South Downs Way and then on 21st September I am doing a 2-mile swim in the Serpentine in Hyde Park. 

Please help me make these 109 miles worthwhile by helping British Heart Foundation to fund research into cures and treatments for heart disease.

Thank you; and look after that heart :-)