As many of you know, one of my jobs, as a nurse, is working for Kate's Home Nursing. This local charity provides free Hospice at Home nursing care for patients in the last stages of terminal illness.

 Although the charity receives some official funding the majority of it's income comes from charitable donations and fundraising events. Being involved first hand with the patients and their families at such difficult and sad times, gives me an insight into just how important it is to support people who wish to die at home. Not only can they die peacefully at home surrounded by the people they love but knowing this last wish has been achieved can help enormously with the family's grief. 

Being able to work for this charity is a huge privilege and I would like to give something back in order that they can keep on doing such valuable work. As a keen sports person, who has done some running and cycling and recently taken up triathlon I decided to take on the ultimate triathlon challenge…An Ironman. An Ironman is a 2.4 mile, open water, swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride and then finished off with a 26.2 mile marathon at the end, all in all covering 140.6 miles in a day! There are time limits and cut offs so I will have to be racing all the way round to avoid being disqualified and I have a total time of 17 hours to complete the course. Although I have swum, cycled and run all these distances individually, please do not think this will be an easy challenge for me. Having experienced the tiredness and pain when running the London Marathon this year I can't imagine how it is going to feel after I have done the swim and the bike ride first! The time it takes to prepare and train for this is enormous, with an average of 3-4 hours training 6 days a week. Luckily I have friends who join me in training and a very supportive and loving family who are helping me every step of the way, by sacrificing time with me, joining me in training, when they can and helping share the load with household chores! It's going to be tough but if I can raise valuable funds it will be worth every ounce of effort and sacrifice.

I shall be doing this challenge in Bolton on the 19th July 2015 at Ironman UK. Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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