In January I will be attempting to complete the Spine Race, known as Britain's Most Brutal endurance race, it's a 268 mile non-stop race following the Pennine Way over 13,300 metres of climb from Edale in Derbyshire to Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders.

The terrain is cruel, with bottomless bogs, treacherous trails and horrendous hills to contend with, alongside the challenge of everything that British weather can throw at me.

And it that weren't enough to contend with, I'm still recovering from double knee surgery in August, which has meant that I will have had only 3 months of active training before the event, after a lengthy layoff due to injury beforehand.

I expect that this challenge will take me 4 or 5 days to complete. So as you snuggle down in your jim-jams each night you will be able to think of me as a I struggle up a hill in the dark, snow, wind and rain. For 5 nights!

I live in the beautiful Eden Valley, close to the Pennine Way, so I wanted to choose a local charity to support rather than one of the big national charities that everyone picks. And what could be more appropriate than Penrith Mountain Rescue? I sincerely hope that you or I never need to call upon their help, but as the largest Lake District Rescue service made up of volunteers, that covers some of the more popular areas of the Lakes, as well as the Pennines between Scotland and North Yorkshie, they rely on public support to supplement their funding.

As a bare minimum they need £12,000 each year to survive and as I write this at the end of November, they are only 84% towards their total. Any donation, however small, will make a difference and keep people safe in the more remote areas of England.