I have decided to attempt the River Ness 10km this September for my incredible Mum and my best friend, Lynne Smith. We lost our Mum in June this year after a 1 year diagnosis with lung cancer. I feel completely heart broken and lost without her but hope that this can be a way to focus my grief towards something positive.

Maggie's was a beautiful and gentle place for us when we needed it most. The warm and relaxed space was somewhere Mum felt comfortable to visit and gave us a place to talk about the difficult things that were happening without pressure.

I am no runner, my partner is running the Loch Ness Marathon in honour of Mum on the same day and this was actually HIS idea for me to sign up! (you can donate to his page here) BUT I have started my training and am already weirdly looking forward to the day. I hope to feel my Mum with me on the run and already know there will be tears which i might be able to pass off as sweat. I can't believe the progress i've made already compared to how I was 3 weeks ago but i've never had something like this to motivate me before.

If you can donate anything I would be hugely grateful for the support and the motivation of supporting such a brilliant centre. Mum would be proud.

You can follow my training on Strava for embarrassing selfies and (hopefully) some more surprising progress 🤞