I am not going to bore you - I’m running the London Marathon this year with my sister for our old friend Woking Hospice.

It’s been nearly 16 years since my stepdad died, and the role that Woking Hospice played in making the process more bearable for a 13 year old me and my family feels more important than ever.

Six months before Will died, he ran a sub-3 hour London Marathon, the 12th race in his lifetime. In the months leading up to it, I had followed him determinedly on my bike as he barrelled round most of the tarmac in the south east, so the event is tied to a lot of my last and fondest memories with him. I struggled to keep up with him then, and I certainly won’t be replicating his time now, but sharing the event with him, and the day with Polly, is a huge privilege.

Hospices are not places that any of us want to experience, but I think that if you do, it is hard not to be grateful for their often thankless work. In my case, alongside treating Will, my entire family was able to access bereavement counselling and I was introduced to a community of young people who were also thinking about loss (even when they didn’t want to).

If you are able to give a few quid, however small, I cannot emphasise enough how much it does both for the hospice and for my selfish desire to have another crack at the glorified suffering of the marathon.