Thank you for visiting my fundraising page, I appreciatehow difficult things are for so many people and how many noble and worthy causes desperately need funds. No matter how small, every donation, every £1 helps - thank you for reading.

Why Guide Dogs?

Almost two million people in the UK are living with sight loss that has a significant impact on their daily lives. Of those, around 180,000 rarely leave their homes alone and lead lonely, isolated lives.

Guide Dogs works for a world where people with sight loss are never left out of life, for a world where being blind or partially sighted is not what defines you. A world with enough support to make the challenges of sight loss no barrier to fulfilling hopes and dreams.

My grandfather became blind late in life, in many ways he was fortunate as he was married to my grandmother so was never lonely and had a bungalow with a large garden that in effect became his entire world. Many people who suffer sight loss are not as fortunate in their living arrangements and a guide dog enables them to live and explore the world, and have social interaction. Unfortunately there are not enough guide dogs to meet demand. That is why I have chosen to support Guide Dogs, as their mission not only gives those impacted with sight loss a chance for freedom and mobility but also helps prevent further mental health conditions caused by loneliness and isolation.

To earn your donation I will run the Isle of Wight challenge- a continuous 106 km run around the circumference of the Isle of Wight. A distance I have never run to date - it will be a true endurance challenge. As part of my training I will also be taking part in the following:-

Marcothon- There is a global community who run 3 miles every day 1st December- 31st December (yes includes Christmas Day) clearly I will be running more than this during the challenge.

Brighton Half Marathon - 2nd March

Brighton Full Marathon - 6th April

Ultimately, the Isle of Wight, 106 Km (c66/67 miles if I don't get lost) Ultra run on Saturday 3rd May

There will also be many more unofficial long runs on trail and road during this time, which will be verified on Strava 😀

https://strava.app.link/3b5HoxdJnOb

Thank you so much for reading and for any donations received, truly grateful, thank you, Richard x