Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. I am conscious you get hundreds of these every year and many of you give generously to other charities so are maxed out... and I know some of you even do marathons/ultras "for fun". I'm not that guy, so for me this will be a real challenge.

As you'll know... years of "other priorities" have left me a fair bit above my fighting weight, and my most recent 5km time is c.35mins and that's about as far as I've run in a decade... so I've got a lot of work to do to get round Leeds (a marathon described as 'hilly') in May.

I'm running to raise money for MND and specifically, the My Name'5 Doddie Foundation. MND took my grandmother at the age of 69, sadly before I could really get to know her. This story is played out in families across the world all too regularly... one in 300 people will get MND over their lifetime - or one in every average-sized cinema screening.

So that is my family connection. The other angle is sport. I played both codes of rugby in the past and MND is a disease that is sadly very close to the sport. I challenge anyone not to be moved by Doddie Weir's, Rob Burrow's, and latterly Ed Slater's experiences and the bravery these men have shown in the face of this horrific disease... so I thought it fitting to be running Rob's marathon, raising Money for Doddie's charity.

Whilst this may seem like the beginnings of a midlife crisis, I can assure you that it'll be one and done so please don't hold back - you'll not get any more of these from me!