The Huntington's Disease Association supports anyone who is affected by Huntington's disease across England and Wales. They pursue the best possible care; provide training & advice to families and professionals; raise awareness, and promote research towards better treatment and care.

The HDA do incredible work to raise awareness of this terrible disease. They offer so much support to families impacted by HD like mine. They offer training to medical and care professionals and have designated councillors who are available to support both the person with the disease, their care givers and their family members.

I lost my father to HD and both my brother and I have tested positive for the disease and are both symptomatic. I received my positive genetic result in November of 2023 and decided straight away that I wanted to do big challenges to raise both awareness of HD and to fundraise for the HDA, so they can continue to offer support to everyone impacted by HD. My first challenge 2 years ago was a non stop 73 mile walk around the Isle of Wight ( where I live ). My second challenge, last year, I completed my Ascent challenge where I walked up hill to a 9000m elevation which was more than going from sea level to higher than Mount Everest!

This year I wanted to go back to cycling, which is a big passion of mine, but unfortunately because of the disease I have less spacial awareness and balance which would have made it unsafe to complete so I decided to go back to long distance walking. I decided I wanted to get more people involved in this challenge and so I thought I'd mix two of the major parts of my life, fundraising and my job as a secondary school teacher.

I am going to walk 100 miles non-stop to go 27 miles further than 2 years ago! I will be doing this at Medina College (where I work) and will walk 100 laps of a 1 mile course. I aim to have every student at my school, come and join me at some point during the walk to hopefully inspire them about what is possible with resilience. I will also be inviting groups from all of the Islands' primary and secondary schools to come along and walk with me as well. Those groups will be sponsored by the families at those schools. I plan on doing either face to face or video link assemblies with all of these schools to introduce the challenge and to raise awareness of HD and to speak about resilience and what you can achieve with the right mind state and determination.

If you feel like you could spare any amount, then every pound will go to this incredible charity who do so much for families like mine!