After completing The Great North Run in September 2024 and raising £860 with your help ( Thank you will never be enough ), I knew I needed to do more...

2025 was fast approaching and I decided, instead of feeling accomplished after my first half marathon and achieving that goal, I was going to push myself - faster, harder and in new ways...

And so, one cold, Tuesday evening in November, I turned up at the local pool to learn front crawl. Having never learnt this stroke before, it was safe to say I was terrified ( and exhausted one hour later - thanks Vicki 😘 ).

4 weeks later I signed up for a Sprint Triathlon and so the swimming and running continued and the bike training was born too...

I began 2025 with a '31 miles in January' challenge for MND and again, with your help, raised £200. I managed exactly 31 miles before the middle of the month when it came to an abrupt end and I went into hospital for a tonsillectomy. 2 very hard, painful weeks followed with no training (even moving from bed to couch required a nap and more pain killers) and my fitness was decreasing, all whilst the sprint triathlon was getting nearer. I knew this challenge was going to be far greater than I had anticipated and would require more courage.

During those 2 weeks, I received an email from MND offering me a place at last year's Leeds Half Marathon - MNDs own and Rob Burrow race. How could I turn it down ?? So I found myself lay there, unable to eat, barely able to hold a conversation, a stone down in weight, and - setting a training plan for the next half marathon. Leeds Half Marathon came and I was totally unprepared for 27 degree heat and those hills !! I pushed through every barrier that day and managed to complete and with a nee PB too !! The buzz and crowds of Leeds was like nothing I had experienced before. I was scarred from the inclines and the heat that day but knew immediately that the next year would have to be my biggest challenge... in the meantime I completed another sprint triathlon ( taking 6 minutes off the previous time ), sadly didn't take part in GNR due to an injury but have trained hard through the winter to get here now...

Through all of this - none of it amounts to what Jean ( our Mum, wife, Nana, mother in law, friend and community heart ) faced every single day during her 364 days following her diagnosis and battle with MND (along with hundreds of others facing this daily battle and the 6 people who are diagnosed every single day with Motor Neurone Disease) .

So... here we are, 7 days away from my final challenge and one I've been anxious about sharing - next Sunday I will be concluding 'A year of MND' with Leeds Rob Burrow marathon. Despite the months of early weekends, long training runs, fuel experimenting ( and not ending well ), running ( crawling ) uphill and following a gruelling training plan, along with an injury that won't budge, I WILL be there on that start line. For Jean 🤎💙

I'm asking for your help again, to get me across that finish line. Please share, raise awareness, talk about it and donate if you can. 'We won't rest until there's a cure'.

From my heart, forever

Bekah xx

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