On Sunday 3rd October I will be running the Belfast City marathon for the Addison’s Disease Self Help Group. My dad was diagnosed with Addison’s disease in 1997 and he is the main reason why I found my passion for running. I was always a big kid at primary school and running around wasn’t really something I liked to do. Then, when I was around 11 years old, my Dad brought me to my first orienteering event and for the next 5 years I was hooked! After a couple of years I was told that I had the skills to go far in orienteering, however my weight was an issue. So that summer in the off season I trained really hard, watched my diet and was in the best shape of my life , I was around 65kg. For the next 3 years I got on the podium in multiple NI Championships, winning 2 series of a 6 event series called the “colour series” that happened every year in Northern Ireland and even represented my Country twice in the Junior inter regional championships. I also was a keen rugby player, and at the age of 16 it came to that time where I needed to start focusing on 1 sport as my body wasn’t able to keep up with the 60 minutes of playing a high intensity rugby match and then, with my dad, driving to an orienteering event to run a 6km course in any competitive time. At this stage, I started going back into my bad eating habits and started gaining the weight again and eventually lost my spot in the orienteering team. So for the next 3 years my focus was playing rugby for my school. This didn’t stop my bad eating habits however, so I kept eating and eating and in my upper sixth year I was 90kg. Then after school I took a gap year out in New Zealand and I had stopped all sporting activity in 2019, but the eating didn’t, and in March 2020 I topped the scales at around 105kg. Then the pandemic hit and I thought if I was every going to get into shape this is it!! So the day after my 19th birthday I started running again. To see where I was at I decided to run 5km, actually run and walk 5km, I was so out of shape that I got shine splints during the run and had to stop and walk parts of it. My time for this 5km was 40 minutes. But I wasn’t gonna give up, so I kept getting up in the morning and was running 5 days a week. I started off doing a couch to 10km, then did a training programme for a half marathon. Now, fast forward 18 months later from my first 5km I am now currently weighing in at 75 kg and just over a week away until I run my first marathon. When I signed up for the marathon back in January there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to run in support of ADSHG. Like I said, my dad was the main reason I got into running. I remember when he ran the Belfast marathon 10 years we went down to support and thought I want to do that one day, and here we are. I am so honoured to run for ADSHG, and I hope that through the fund-raising that I am doing we will be able to help those who have this rare disease and also bring awareness to the future generation about Addison’s disease.