So I got into a conversation at work, where they were discussing getting together a team for Run Balmoral next April. "Not me" I scoffed. "I don't run. I don't even walk".

But I am fiercely competitive (not to mention vain) and of course within five minutes I had signed up not for the 5k team (a mere up and down Union Street! pah!) but for the TEN K (thats four Union Streets, ea-sy, ea-sy!)

My bravado lasted about 2 days, until someone pointed out Union Street is 0.7 miles long, and the 10k is the equivalent of running up and down it ELEVEN TIMES. 

...wait, what? Um. I couldn't even outrun the tide at Lunan Bay.

Oh - and there is a notorious hill in the middle. A massive hill.

Everyone who is laughing right now will be laughing on the other side of their face when I roll my chubby cheeks over the finish line and start demanding payback. Because, oh yes, I need sponsors. Because (did I mention?) this isn't just a stupid run.

It is to raise money for Gastrocan, the Gastro-Oesophageal Cancer Research Fund. I have said goodbye to so many family members who have died of cancer, and there is a good chance that one day it will whip me away, or my sisters, or my mum. So I think of this as life insurance for the future. And also payback for those who have gone already.

Please help me safeguard for the future, because I don't want to ever say those words again - "I wish they were still here".

Cancer, you are in for it now - you have been warned.

#TeamGastrocan