On the 27th of December 2020 we lost my brother in law Matt Coles, less than 10 months after the diagnosis of a brain tumour. Matt was only 47 when we lost him, cruel doesn't even come close.

Matt was a devoted husband to Jo and wonderful dad to Max and Abi. His loss was devastating for them and all of our family. We shared so many memories with Matt over the years, he was a constant presence in our lives, one we will not forget  

More often than not throughout the last months of Matts  life we felt helpless. Covid meant we couldn't be there with anything more than words, words which never felt enough.

Hopefully through this fundraising I can give a little bit back, on behalf of all my family, in loving memory of Matt.

So why this charity? The harsh reality is that more children and adults under 40 die of a brain tumour than any other form of cancer. 5 year survival for breast or prostate cancer is over 70%, leukemia is over 40%, yet for brain tumours it is just 12%. But, all that being said, this is not reflected in parity of funding. Since national cancer funding records began in 2002, £680 million has been invested in breast cancer, with only £96 million in brain tumours. That's £35 million less every year for 17 years.

I'm no stranger to a daft challenge for charity but with this one being so close to home and the realisation that research into this kind of cancer is woefully underfunded I've upped the stakes. This time it's 3 events!

March 27th - 3 months to the day since we lost Matt, I will be undertaking a 9 hour virtual event; running repeated loops for 9 hours.

September 18th - I will be competing in a 62 mile trail race from Guisborough to Filey on the Cleveland Way.

October 3rd - I will be competing in the London Marathon BUT with a twist. Normally I race a marathon for the time, but this is for Matt so.......I let his son, my nephew Max, pick one of Matt's favourite Star Wars characters and I'm going to run the whole thing in fancy dress! Thankfully he chose Bobba Fett. 

I will be training week in and week out, as I always do, but Matt is never far from my mind when I run at the moment. These challenges are for him and I hope I can raise some much needed funds in his memory.

Thanks all.

Andy