My wife Anna was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) when she was 21 and the MS Trust have been there to support her ever since. Their core strapline is "to help everyone make sense of MS" and this is exactly why they have been so brilliant for Anna and I.

Their employees are the most approachable and caring and make it feel like you are talking with family. Their website delivers clear and concise information which is vital when you are trying to make sense of an incredibly stressful situation.

MS is a neurological disease which affects the central nervous system. Anna's specific condition is called Relapse-Remitting which means symptoms come and (hopefully) go, but it is degenerative. We work hard to ensure that we manage Anna's MS as much as possible however when her MS presents itself it can do so in a myriad of ways. Some of these have included: tingling and numbness in parts of the body, loss of balance, changes in her spatial awareness, loss of mobility, the feeling of instant fatigue and loss of vision.

Whilst a cure for MS would be amazing, The Trust focus their funding on supporting those who are living with MS daily. For example:

- £15 could pay for an information specialists to provide telephone support to a person with MS. We

- £100 could cover the cost to provide their Making Sense of MS guide to everybody diagnosed with MS in one week.

- £1,765 could pay for a newly-appointed MS specialist nurse to receive foundation training in MS care, through the MS Trusts development module.

My aim is to break 3h 30m and I will be following a training plan to (hopefully) achieve this. The plan consists of running four times per week and covering 400+ miles over the 16 weeks leading up to the marathon at the end of April. This will by my first road marathon and first with a time target - for some context, my previous marathon PB is 4h 34m.

The MS Trust receive no government or NHS funding. It's only thanks to your generosity that they continue their work.

Thank you for your donation!

Please follow my training in the Strava section below, or my Strava profile here: https://www.strava.com/athletes/8264553