Two of my grandparents and both my parents have suffered from dementia, resulting in great heartache for all concerned. Anything that can help has to be worthwhile - it affects so many people.

The picture is me finishing the Cambridge Half Marathon - the first time I have competed in a Half Marathon race. I finished in 2 hours and 9 minutes.

Why do I want to do a Half Ironman? Because I needed a challenge to keep me from getting fatter, and after deciding that I could run a half marathon, and I do triathlons, why not do a half ironman, because all I have to do is swim 1.9km, ride 90km and run a half marathon. In less than 8 hours.

Why do I want to do a Half Ironman in Belgium? Because the course is flat, and it's not too far from home - I can drive there - and because a friend said that if I entered they would be the mad Belgian cheering me on on the run.

My training has so far largely been running, but it's going to step up now until September, with another half marathon planned at the start of May, followed by a 1.5km swim, and various other events during the summer. Over winter I built a metal storage shed for our garden equipment so that I could put my bike on a turbo-trainer in the shed. Sadly I didn't get much time for that afterwards because I was concentrating too much on the running.

I have huge support from Meridian Triathlon Club (where I am a member), who provide coached swim and run sessions and plenty of personal advice about how to train, how to keep energy levels and hydration up during long events, and have even write some training plans for me.

So I intend to give this my best shot, and if all goes well, I might even beat 7 hours but I'm not promising anything yet. I'll try and keep updates on this page when another event or milestone has passed.

And thank you very much for reading this and sponsoring me.

Everyone has been very generous, and I'm alreaady1/3rd of the way to my target - thank you everyone. Training has been going well so far, but everything has to get longer. Today I did a 36km bike ride in 1h30 and then straight after an 8km run in 50minutes. If I can keep up that pace on the run for a further 13km then I'm happy, but I wasn't about to run much further today. I'll post another update after May 10th.

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