Let me tell you what I hate… running, don’t mind the paraphrase of Loyle Carner. For those of you who haven’t had the nightmare of meeting me for longer than 10 mins, there is almost nothing more I hate in this world than the idea of going for a run, well that and my music taste slander. I would rather do 24 hours of any sport than go for a 30 mins run, so the idea of running near around 5 hours, well this would be the equivalent of me listening to an Arsenal fan make their case that they’re a more successful club than Chelsea because they had one invincible season and don’t know what a champions league trophy looks like, sorry dad. So what have I decided to do? Well in April the Paris Marathon will be ran by 4 incredible blokes and yours truly. This is where you’re thinking, “why would George sign up for this?” Yes it definitely has been surprise of the year for me, after of course hearing sentino prices. (Everyone give the insta page a follow, I heard there’s an incredibly handsome model who is modelling the first drop t shirt on it, who appears to be putting his sunglasses on) Well in 2005 my mum got her first diagnosis of breast cancer and bravely underwent treatment and came out a warrior almost 2 years later. Now at the time I was 2/3 years old, so can’t remember it well, but was something I was told without too much of a worry and something I took on the chin and hoped would never come again. Unfortunately at the end beginning of my GCSE summer, I went to a an annual breast screening clinic with my mum, sitting in the car, not really understanding the point of all of this and a few days later I flew to Uganda and did charity work there for 2 weeks and didn’t think twice about it. When I came back, I found out my mum had got booked in for an emergency doctor’s appointment and that it was breast cancer again. I remember when hearing this, I was a bit naive thinking that breast cancer is not too deep plus Mums beat it before, it’s an inconvenience but one we’d all get through together. A few weeks later we got told it’s stage 4 breast cancer and that it had already spread to the lymph nodes and she needed to undergo immediate chemo and radio therapy for around a year. A few months later, the whole world decided to shut down and this where “don’t call it a fight when you know it’s a war” would’ve been the most applicable lyric I’ve ever heard, but God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. At the time I wasn’t able to tell any of my closest friends, with none of my school/home friends knowing. It left me on my own in the countrysides of Welwyn with 4 of the toughest A level subjects to get on with and a train of overthinking thoughts, with my mum always in the hospital in treatment/recovery or in the Royal Brompton for her pacemaker and my dad working or looking after my mum, and occasionally coming back home to make me dinner/check on me. Sarah has always been more than a sister to me, also being a second mum, always looking after me with the 9 year age gap (yes I was a mistake) and despite the challenges of being a junior doctor on long days and night shifts, she continued to come home and keep me company. Despite this, I knew that everyday I had to wake up at 6:30, after probably 4 hours sleep and get changed, hop on a bus/drive to elstree and put on a smile and pretend like nothing’s going on for almost 2 years of my life. I’m so happy to say that it has been almost 4 years since my mum had been cancer free and for those who haven’t seen me over the summer, I buzz cut my hair which would mark 5 years since her diagnosis and with the marathon taking place April 13th it will be 2 days before her birthday and everything just seems to fall into place perfectly for me to run this marathon. Those 2 years will go down as the toughest 2 years of my life having to watch your best friend go through that and being completely unable to even speak to them. I’ve seen my uncle, aunt, friends and even siblings of friends go through very similar things and it is still one of the hardest things for me to hear. I’m running for MacMillan because it’s my mum’s favourite charity and I could see first hand of course physically how it effects the patient, but also some of the damage it does to the closest friends and families of patients. MacMillan does such great work with research into cancer care, as well as working with the NHS to develop support centres, oncology centres and cancer information and support for patients and their families, which is why I’m proud to be running with MacMillan as one of my 2 charities for this marathon. I only told 3 people prior to this just giving page that this will be the real reason I’ll be running the marathon and all 3 of them have been so supportive and even got me excited for it and they know who they are so thank you to them because I wouldn’t be seeing this through without their support. The day I started training for this marathon, I somehow got a pint of Guinness in London for £4.85 and split the G(roup) (talk about stars aligning) and decided to go on a midnight run, hence the photos on this page and this was the nail in the coffin for me to see this through. For those who know me, I massively struggle to speak about this and it’s taken me a lot of courage to post this story so publicly, but I am just a super proud son, who has 2 incredible parents, an amazing sister, with incredible friends and family around me and am aware how privileged I have been in my life with everything being provided for me by both my incredible parents, which makes me aware of also people who will be going through similar struggles in far less fortunate positions, therefore I would greatly appreciate any sort of donations to this cause, no matter how large or how small or even just telling a friend or family member about the page. Thank you everyone for taking time out of your day to read this and would love to see as many of you in Paris and if keen please drop me a message, to keep you updated with the weekend plans. Anyone who’s keen on going for a walk/run also please drop me a msg to keep me motivated to train for it and we can have a good shmooze and will also try my best to post my bigger runs without spamming my social media and please stay posted for the link of my second charity which is just as important to me. Thank you in advance for donations and support regarding both charities.