I'll start this story by saying that my sister, Erin, is alive and well, doing a fantastic job working for the NHS and generally loving life...

Erin was born without a thyroid gland, so she's on a daily dose of thyroxine for life and has been since birth.

Every summer holiday, we'd visit Sheff Children's and Erin would get assessed and her daily thyroxine dosage potentially changed based on the findings.

So Sheff Children's played a big part in my family's life through the 80s and 90s.

Additionally, when Erin was 2 or 3 years old, I managed to prise the lid off of her thyroxine tablets pot and gave her some, which meant an emergency trip to Sheff Children's.

So, I think it's about time I gave something back...

The last time I ran a half marathon was Madrid in 2016, so starting slow and steady, indoors on the treadmill so I can control lots of stuff and focus on going the distance.

Two weeks before signing up to the Sheff Half Marathon, I'd made this promise to focus on my health and wellbeing and get into better shape. Someone I know saw me post on socials and suggested I join them in the Brighton Half Marathon. I said I'd run enough half marathons to know I never wanted to run one again. And that was that.

I'm really not sure how I then ended up where I am now...

I've never run a half marathon in under 2 hours, so that's a target. And I always seem to get it into my head that a half marathon is 12miles, when it's actually 13.1. There have been a couple of times I've got to the 12mile marker and realised I've got another 1.1miles to go and just refused to keep going.

Jilly always manages to talks me round, tho...