Hiya! Thanks for stopping by.....

As you probably know, I'm taking part in the 2022 London Marathon and hope you'll join me in supporting the incredible work of Alzheimer's Research UK. 

Not on the run itself of course. I'll do that bit. But I'd love it if you could make a contribution of any size to the fundraising target - it's a big one! 

By way of persuasion, it's round about here that I'm meant to explain where my motivation has come from. But if you've ever crossed paths with dementia, you don't need me to tell you about it. Besides, we're not raising money for what's gone before - we're raising money to build a better future. 

So instead I'll tell you exactly where all of your generous donations are going. They’re helping to fund a ground breaking project called the EDoN Initiative (Early Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases). 

Basically, a bunch of extremely clever people are using data science, digital technology and clinical tests to identify ‘fingerprints’ - patterns in our brain that show the earliest signs of diseases like Alzheimer’s. They’re also developing wearable technology that can pick up these fingerprints long before typical symptoms of dementia start to appear. 

That means that future diagnosis may be possible 10 - 15 years earlier than it is now. And that means that another bunch of extremely clever people can make faster breakthroughs in preventative treatment - and one day find a cure.

It’s a global project spearheaded by ARUK (and it’s better explained here: https://edon-initiative.org/) but it needs a lot of funding. The charity hopes to raise £100m by 2030, and though it seems like a relative drop in the ocean, if we can pull together £4,000 I’d say that was a pretty decent effort. 

Thank you so much for whatever you do next. And whilst we're not dwelling on the past here, I will finish with a quick shout out to two women that have inspired me to run for ARUK:

My Grandma. Madge Morris. 1921 - 2011

My Aunt. Denise Scargill. 1946 - 2021