I have decided that, to mark my 60th birthday earlier this year, I would attempt to complete the Prudential 100. This is a 100 mile bike ride through London and Surrey on Sunday 31 July, first completed in the 2012 Olympics. I intended to do it entirely as a vanity project. The purpose was to establish that I could both complete an impossible distance in a day, and prevent myself from being overweight for the first time in 30 years. However, constant questions about what I was cycling for led me directly to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Stop MS.

http://stopms.mssociety.org.uk/ 

MS has been a disease that I have followed closely. As a student, I spent time looking after MS sufferers. Two friends are significant sufferers. It is a terrifying, unpredictable and debilitating disease. Cycling is one of the first activities that MS sufferers realise they cannot do. Great progress has been made to find a cure, and the only remaining constraint is funding. 

So I am asking you to sponsor me to fund a specific MS research project which will trial treatment for secondary progressive MS. A successful trial and treatment will mean everyone diagnosed with MS should be able to live without fear of relapse or the threat of increasing
disability. Details can be found on my Just Giving page – www.justgiving.com/fundraising/A-Philip-Marsden2.

An additional incentive for me is that international partner funders have agreed to match any donation. Every £1 I raise will be matched by them by around £3.50. A £100 donation should mean £450 for the cause; £10,000 will mean £45,000. The target is £5 million.

Please sponsor me generously, either via the link above, or by cheque – made payable to ‘The MS Society’ and post to Hayley McConnell at Ridgeway Partners, 110 Buckingham Palace Road, SW1W 9SA.

Today is the most exciting time there has ever been for the treatment and management of MS. There are eleven licensed treatments that can reduce the severity and frequency of MS relapses. This is excellent progress but it is not enough. As yet, there is no proven treatment for the progressive form of MS, which is developed by almost everyone with the condition. Advances in MS research have been astonishing, and more progress has been made in the last decade in MS than in any other neurological disease.  

With our help, The MS Society has launched the Stop MS Appeal to fund research which will enable people diagnosed with MS will be able to live their lives without the threat of increasing disability. To make this major step forward in creating a world free from multiple sclerosis will require an investment of £100 million over 10 years.