At the end of October I turned 30!?!

A milestone!

But a milestone without my twinling Pete 💔

Pete Felton was a 27 year old musician from the West Midlands: he was a below the knee amputee, had beaten addiction and cancer twice, and was a rare inspirational spirit. 3 weeks after marrying the love of his life he was given a terminal cancer diagnosis and in February 2020 he lost his fight.

I miss him every moment of every day!

In order to honour Pete, in October I ran 100 es to raise money for two fantastic charities: Young Lives vs Cancer and The New Normal. Now I want to continue this by running and riding 2023 miles in 2023

Pete recieved a lot of support from Young Lives Vs Cancer, in particular their musical programme which uses music and creativity to help 16-24 year olds develop resilience, give/get peer support and express the emotional impact of cancer on their lives.

When a child is diagnosed with cancer life becomes full of fear, for them and their family. Fear of treatment, but also of families being torn apart, overwhelming money worries, of having nowhere to turn, no one to talk to.

Young Lives Vs Cancer's social workers help families get through the most frightening time of their lives. But every day 12 more children and young people hear the devastating news they have cancer.

At Young Lives vs Cancer, they help families find the strength to face everything cancer throws at them.

They know everyone's different, so work hard to provide support that’s easy to access and meets individual needs

Since Pete passed away Hollie and myself have found amazing support from the charity The New Normal and their free peer to peer grief and mental health support meetings. Peer support is a format that The New Normal Charity has proudly adopted from its inception in May 2018. They feel that it can be incredibly healing to talk to others with similar life experiences. TNN holds 20+ face to face and virtual meetings a month and have grown to include dedicated meetings for different identities and experiences such as: the LGBTQ+ and Black and Brown communities, students, complicated grief, lockdown loss, and partner loss, as well as mental health spaces Boys Talk, Girls Talk and a new Peer Support Run Club.

Hollie credits them to saving her life and I will be forever grateful for this and all the support and friends I have made within this charity!

I didn't quite meet my fundraising target of £1992 for October so I've increased it slightly with he aim of raising £2023 for these fantastic charities throughout the year.

As I'm fundraising for two charities please choose the link for which charity you'd like to donate to, however if possible I'd like the split to be as near 50:50 as can be.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Thank you so much 🥰