In February 2018 my father was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease after slowly noticing problems with becoming weaker and having problems with walking over the previous year. He passed away in August 2022, having lived with its slow inexorable progression for well over five years. Before MND he was very active, had recently retired and enjoyed taking the dogs on long walks in the dunes and pinewoods and tending his allotment growing huge amounts of produce. MND slowly took all of this away from him and more until finally it took his life. Many people who are diagnosed with MND are less fortunate than he was, with a third dying within a year of diagnosis, and over half after two years.

MND is a relatively rare condition but this makes it no less devastating for those who are diagnosed or their loved ones. Its rarity makes researching it and funding that research challenging. Awareness has been greatly increased recently by the stories of Doddy Weir and Rob Burrow, and the recent diagnosis of Lewis Moody, but there is still no cure or way to arrest the disease's progression, only treatments that may slow it by a few months and ease the symptoms.

Over the last two years or so I have been on a journey of my own. I have gone from weighing over 29 stone (405lbs, 185KG) and being unable to walk to the end of my street without being in pain and completely out of breath, to being just over half that weight now. All I've done to achieve this is eat much better and exercise much more, finding walking in the same dunes and woods as my father used to the perfect way to get started, and slowly extending my walking from there. I've already walked further distances than I ever thought I would in my life at the age of 44, and by the time I tackle this challenge I'll be 45.

The Windsor 50 Ultra challenge is a 50km route through Windsor Great Park and along the banks of the Thames. The opportunity to push myself to do an even longer distance, raise some money for the charity that helped my parents navigate the reality of MND as it ran its course and continues to campaign and fund research, and to do it in an area I know well from working nearby felt like a coming together of various threads that I couldn't ignore. Please give generously to the charity, and I'll keep you updated with how I'm going preparing for the walk, and how it all goes on the day.