As a parent of two healthy kids, after hearing the trauma that a close friend and his wife suffered through losing their son, I felt great sadness for their loss and an incredible amount of guilt that my experience of parenting had been so privileged. Through speaking with my friend more about this over time, it has been saddening to learn just how common stillbirth and neo-natal death is amongst colleagues in your workplace, your local area and ultimately across the world.

Therefore, when my friend told me he wanted to raise some money for the charity SANDS, who had been an incredible support for him during that time, by riding 1,000 miles between April and September, 2022, there was no hesitation to join him. It won’t be anywhere near a comparable amount of suffering, but 1,000 miles in 5 months and 11 days is a fair old feat. Especially as I am no longer the 27 year old Personal Trainer, who used to cycle in and out of London most days of the week. Now 37, with two desk-based jobs, your donations will be the driving motivation to achieve this challenge and they will go to a great cause, SANDS, to support other mummies and daddies who really need them in devastating moments.

The official description for our team challenge, written by my close friend, is found below:

Thank you for visiting my fundraising page. The team you are sponsoring are a group of friends who have been close mates for many years and are each a hero in their own right. The challenge is to cycle more than 12, 000 miles (1,000 for each team member), between April 1st and September 11th 2022, to raise vital funds for SANDS. SANDS has three main aims:1) Support anyone affected by the death of a baby. 2) Work in partnership with healthcare professionals to ensure that bereaved parents and families receive the best possible care. 3) Promote improvements in practice and fund research to help reduce the number of babies dying.Dealing with baby loss is traumatic. I cannot thank SANDS enough for all they did for us. If you are in a position to do so, please donate what you can and share this link with friends, family and colleagues to support such a great cause!Thank you.X