Last year, I completed the Sheffield 10k… the furthest I’ve run since my 20s. Under the influence of post-event adrenaline, a close friend fooled me into signing up for a half marathon. On the 7th April, I’ll be running the London Landmarks Half Marathon to raise much-needed funds for the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation.

It’s taken me quite some time to finally setup this fundraising page. Nothing to do with being too busy with work and the boys (although life is pretty manic) but, by setting up this page and sharing the link, it means acknowledging publicly that my beautiful mum was taken by Motor Neurone Disease. Over two years later, it still catches my breath every time I wake up to find it really is true or I go to phone her and realise I can’t. Grief is brutal.

Mum’s funeral was held a year to the day after she had received her diagnosis of MND. It is the cruellest, most devastating disease imaginable which gradually (or rapidly in mum’s case) robs a person of their independence, their mobility and their voice.  Ever the strong willed and determined person, mum made her own decisions about the support she would entertain and the interventions she would decline. Throughout her final year, Mum remained hopeful that she would get onto a research trial and would then be able to share the devastating news that she had MND along with some optimism of the doctors being on the brink of a breakthrough. Frustratingly, MND research is desperately underfunded and the trials were repeatedly delayed. Had her condition not developed under the cover of lockdowns, her last year may well have looked so very different.

Fundraising for the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation won’t change the impact MND has had on our family. But by supporting this charity, my hope is that for those living with MND now and in the future, there will be a way to control the disease or, dare I say, cure it. Currently, MND is fatal and incurable.

My beautiful friend, Ange, will be running too. I won’t say we’re running it together as she’s way faster than me. She’s a machine so she’ll nail it in under two hours and had better get the coffees in at the finish whilst I’m doing the last 5k!

The London Landmarks Half is actually the same day as the Sheffield Half. I’d have loved to be able to do this in Sheffield and have plenty of familiar faces lining the route. But I’ve seen those hills. I don’t do running uphill. Nobody needs to witness me going up Knowle Lane! As my running ability is more suited to the gradients of the Thames embankment, London Landmarks it is.

So please sponsor me. Whether your motivation for adding to the pot is to help kick my backside into running or, more importantly, to kick the backside of MND, no matter how big or small your donation, I’m extremely grateful. 

Big love,

Lucy x