I'm fortunate to have ballot places in both the Great North Run and the London Marathon, I started my training on 1st January by setting myself a couple of challenges, to walk 10,000 steps a day (which is difficult when you have a sit down job) and to run a half marathon each month of the year, both of which I've managed so far. For the last few weeks I've started to increase the distance of my long runs, and to run them on flattish tarmac, I'm up to 33kms now. 

My favourite runs though are hilly off road ones, like lots of my running friends, I hope never to need the services of the mountain rescue, but it's reassuring to know they're there, they are a charity run entirely on volunteers, they save lives 24/7, 365 days a year.

Like many other charities over the last few months they have struggled with fundraising, please help me to help them.