Anyone who knows me well knows that there’s little more I enjoy than pushing my body to its extremes. So when, aged 7, I first watched the London Marathon on TV with my Dad, gawping in awe at the thousands of amazing runners dragging themselves 26.2 miles around the streets of London, I knew that some day I too would run the marathon.

And Sunday, April 13th, 2014 is that day.

I was fortunate to receive a place for this year’s marathon in the highly competitive ballot process (I took my ‘winning’ in this ballot as a further sign that I was ‘meant’ to take on the challenge).  However, I have since decided to dedicate this run to someone far tougher than I, my beautiful friend Tania, who is currently fighting lymphoma.

Tania and I met in our university halls of residence, on our way to the infamous Freshers’ “Back To School” disco. It was on this particular night that not only did I realise how convenient it was to have a best friend who shared the same sized feet as me (we used to – in fact still do - swap shoes at the end of a long night’s dancing to give us each a new lease of life and so continue the party) but I realised Tania would remain a close friend for life.

The charity I have therefore chosen to run for is Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, an incredibly worthy charity, which for 50 years has invested in life-saving research to better understand blood cancers including leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. If you would like to help me support this cause, then I would be hugely grateful if you could sponsor my run, either by following the links on this page, or by texting the code BAQD66, together with the amount you'd like to sponsor me (e.g. £10), to 70070.

I don’t want this to be a sad posting, rather one about celebrating friendship but, with your support, I hope that every step of my 26.2 mile run will bring us ever closer to a world without cancer.

So Tania, this one is for you. I look forward to seeing you at the end, and trust that just like on our nights out, you will be there waiting with a fresh pair of trainers for me to swap into.

Thank you to anyone who can support this great cause, Louise x