Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I have joined up with a friend and colleague Enda Ryan, to raise money for Alzheimer's Research UK. The reason we have chosen this charity is my father has been a long time sufferer with the disease. It is a disease that places the sufferer through a long deterioration process that results with family and loved ones going through a series of mourning stages as the person you once knew slips away.

My dad was once a very active and successful sportsman, from representing his country as a Scottish schoolboy, through to representing the Royal Navy in a range of sports including the gruelling Field Gun crew and on to becoming a qualified football referee. My dad devoted a lot of time to sport, managing and coaching football in the amateur ranks to both young and older players helping them achieve the success that he too had experienced. My dad continued to play, coach and referee football into his early 60s. Always fiercely loyal to friends and family and the best role model I could ever have had. To now see him go through this deterioration is both a sobering and soul destroying process for me and the rest of our family.

Due to his active past, both myself and Enda have decided to take on a variety of physical challenges, of which the first is the Devizes to Westminster Canoe race. A non-stop round the clock 125mile race in which we will be competing in a 2 person kayak. Update!!!We completed it in 26hours and 22mins even though the conditions were very slow and I tore my shoulder just 25miles in. It was an epic experience which we will both never forget, its had such a lasting effect we fancy doing it again next year.

Now its time to move onto the next challenge, the shoulder is nearly 100% so we're both going to be dragging ourselves round the Great South Run on October 30th. The aim for me is to do it in under 1hour 25mins, Enda's going for 1hour 30mins fresh from his Great North Run exploits, but if the conditions are favourable you never know what might happen. Rest assured we'll be pushing ourselves to the limits like last time even if its a little shorter, doesn't mean its going to be easy though.

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