On May 4th 2024 I'll be gearing up at the start line for a 110km ultramarathon around the hills of Loch Ness which involves 3500m of elevation in total. As fun as this may sound to many of you on its own, there's actually a bigger reason behind doing all of this beyond the thrill of lugging myself around Scotland for 2 days. I'm on a mission to raise £1600, enough to support 2 people into full time residency, through Greater Change, a fantastic charity working hard to fight homelessness in the UK.

This is where you come in – I'd love your support in making this goal possible and I've got an extra incentive if you're not convinced yet. Anyone who donates can add a song to my Spotify playlist, which I'll be exclusively listening to on race day, so please make them high tempo!!

Also, every £15 donated will buy you a ticket to a raffle with the lucky winners getting one of these exclusive prizes....

- A dinner party for you and 4 friends of your choice, hosted by me.

- A personalised video from me during the run.

- I'll take you out to Brunch at a location of your choice (Definitely no bottomless pre-May!).

- A limited edition T-shirt from NFS (My brother's brand).

Any donations will be much appreciated, with all proceeds going directly to those who need it most! Leave your song requests in the donation comments or send me a private message :)

Please read below for more detailed information on why I've chosen to run for Greater Change and a bit more about the race itself.

Why Greater Change

In December, I took part in a charity day with some of my colleagues where I helped out with Greater Change and heard about the work they do. I was very impressed by what they were doing and surprised at how little investment it would take to get each person back into full time accommodation.

Greater Change provides individuals with personalised cash grants to help them out of homelessness for good in a dignified and cost effective manner. Partner charities refer to Greater Change individuals for whom a relatively small financial boost will have a transformative impact. These clients tell them exactly what they need to take this step out of homelessness, they listen and fund it. It's a very simple model, but it's also unique and it works.

Since being founded in 2018, Greater Change has supported over 800 individuals out of homelessness. 86% of those supported last year were still in full time residency a year on. Through Greater Change, one individual will be supported out of homelessness with just £800, which unlocks cost savings of over £35,000 to the public purse.

https://www.greaterchange.co.uk/about

The Race

Like many others, I started running in lockdown to pass the time and started to get quite into it before suffering with multiple injuries which meant that 1 year later I was still unable to run 1km without having to stop.

Those who know me will know that I do like a challenge, so when I finally ran my first 5k back from injury in October 2023, I sensibly decided to sign up for an ultramarathon in the hope that this goal would force my body to sort itself out! I also decided that some training would be useful so I'll be running the Rome Marathon in March to help prepare myself.

https://ultra-x.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Ultra-X-Scotland-2023-Race-Information-Pack-110-V12.pdf