In 2011 I lost my mum, Julie. 

She was diagnosed with MS aged 20 and I watched her suffer with the condition my whole life. For a daughter, it's confusing, tiring and unpredictable. Worst of all you just feel helpless. 

I can't even imagine how it must have felt for her. 

But she never gave up. 

I remember one day she came home in tears. She was advised not to walk "long" distances but refused to let anyone tell her what she could and couldn't do. So, she walked the 2.5 kilometre round trip to the local shop and library. Something me and you wouldn't need to think twice about doing. But on the walk home she was tired. Her hips stuck out and her balance was off so she'd need to stop to hold herself up against a wall regularly. She was normally OK with this, she'd come to live with it. This time though, someone had shouted at her all the way down the street yelling expletives and wondering why a young woman would be walking around "drunk" at lunchtime. 

This was just one occasion. She endured decades of similar encounters. People didn't understand how someone so young and healthy at first glance could be "disabled". 

And that's why I want to raise money for the MS Society. Unless you're touched by MS, it's impossible to know what it is or recognise when someone might have it. I'm not saying that people with MS should be treated differently. They just need to be understood. And helped. Every day we get closer to a cure, or at least make some headway on making it more manageable for the thousands who have to suffer with it. To me, this is really exciting. 

So this is my 10K. In memory of all the 2 km, 1 km, even 100 metre trips my mum struggled with. I know to a lot of people, 10K might not seem a long way, but I've never run a race more than 200m in length so for me it feels like a marathon. I've wanted to do a run, or something, in memory of mum for a while so I'm finally giving it a go! 

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