Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. I am going to tell you the story of little Stella, the daughter of my friends John Rogers and Allison Hyde, that inspired me to run the Brighton Marathon (also my first ever marathon!) for charity.

In June 2009, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of infant cancer known as neuroblastoma. Stella was only 17 months old at the time and had to endure gruelling anti-cancer therapy: chemotherapy, surgery, bone marrow transplant, radiotherapy and again chemotherapy - too much and too harsh for such a young human being but going through all this was necessary for her to survive.

Even after she stoically braved all this, Stella's chances of living were only 20%. A new antibody therapy that is not currently available in Europe would have given Stella the chance to increase her odds of survival to a significant 80%! Stella's parents were facing tough options: find £ 250,000 + to pay for the treatment in a clinic in the USA or not to offer their little daughter the best chance for survival!

With the enthusiastic help of the 2Simple Trust charity, friends and strangers, through fundraising efforts that spanned almost a year, John and Allison managed to offer their daughter the best chance available and she is currently making a good recovery.

However, there are other children supported by 2Simple Trust that need your help to beat this terrible disease that could deny their chance to live. I dedicate this marathon running effort to helping these children. I am asking you to kindly contribute to saving these children's lives. Every donation, however small, would make a difference! So please dig deep and donate now.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.