Lairig Ghru Hill race

It’s 10 years since my son Jesse had a stem cell transplant that saved his life!

On 25th July 2015 my son Jesse was diagnosed with leukaemia. As the disease progressed, his only treatment option was to have a stem cell or bone marrow transplant. Thanks to a match on the Anthony Nolan stem cell register, on the afternoon of 30th June 2016, an unknown German man went into a hospital in Hamburg and donated his stem cells that saved Jesse’s life. The cells were shipped on a plane that afternoon and by the evening they were flowing into Jesse’s arm. Without that man’s selfless generosity and the incredible team at the Beatson Cancer Hospital in Glasgow the outcome would have been very different.

I want to say thank you to those people and to everyone else that has helped and supported Jesse and to do so I am asking for your help. I would like to do two things, firstly raise some money to give to the Anthony Nolan charity, and secondly encourage anyone between the ages of 16 and 30 to consider signing up as a donor. Being a donor will mean you may need to make some sacrifices, but it may also mean you save someone’s life. You can find out more information at www.anthonynolan.org

To commemorate the anniversary, I’m taking on a pretty tough challenge and going to run the Lairig Ghru hill race and would like you to help me raise some money for Anthony Nolan.

The Lairig Ghru Hill race is a bit longer than a marathon across a famous mountain pass in Scotland between Braemar and Aviemore. Why is this a challenge? Apart from the obvious I’m 62, enjoy running about 5-10km a week but have never taken on anything like this! Most of it is off road on rough stoney tracks, mountain paths, there's a fair old hill to run up, an infamous 1km boulder field to cross plus fording a few streams and other challenges along the way. It’s entirely unsupported so I have to carry any food and water with me, and hopefully complete it in under 6 1/2 hours.

I’ve set up a just giving page (LINK) and if you are able to help me to say thank you to everyone that worked so hard to treat Jesse and say congratulations on 10 years post-transplant then please have a look at my page. (Just Giving suggests a fairly hefty15% transaction fee but you can change this when you make a donation)

Thank you