Now let me make this clear: I’m not a runner. Cycling - the sport of my previous challenges - I have always loved. I hated running when I was a kid. I have only spectator history with the marathon as an event. I think it was the third edition of the London Marathon in 1983 that I went to watch in Greenwich. We stood there clapping the runners on for an hour or so. Maybe I was inspired by all these amateur runners doing such an epic event to support their chosen charities. Maybe the seed of an idea was there. Maybe one day I’d try to complete a marathon.

At some point over last summer, after I’d finally  ‘completed’ the 2012 Etape (my first fundraising challenge) route, I was thinking about a new challenge for 2019. Doing some running again had entered my head. As I say, I’m not a runner. I hadn't run for 5 years when I did 5 preparatory runs over 9 weeks and then ran the Aber 10k in 2013. That was hard. I’d started out trying to keep up with Julie and Si, but quickly realised that that was foolish. Plan B was to try and keep the 1 hour pacer in sight. I just about managed to do this and squeaked in under the hour – which was good enough for me. I resolved not to do any more running until I was considerably lighter.

Come Summer 2018 I was lighter. Maybe I should sign up for the Aber 10k in December and see how that went? This time my preparation was extensive. 7 runs. But, on the day, the event pulled something extra out of me, as these things often do. Somehow I ended up coming in under 50 minutes – over 10 minutes quicker than I had been 5 years previously.

So now I’m committed. Back in January, I signed up for a marathon. Not the London Marathon, but the Great Bruges Marathon on 20th October. If I’m going to do this thing for the one and only time in my life, then why not do it in my favourite city in the world?

This is a challenge for me. And not just to finish. Honestly, I could just walk round and still finish. I have walked marathon distance a couple of times before. There’s nothing to stop you doing that. Officially there’s a cut off time of 5 hours for the Bruges Marathon. But all that means in practice is that they open the roads again. Big deal – you can still run on the pavements like every other day of the year. It’s not like the Etape, where you’re hauled off your bike into a ‘broom waggon’ if you’re slower than the allotted time. So, I set myself the – maybe over-optimistic – target of finishing in under 4 hours. After my time in the Aber 10k, it seems like that is feasible. And now, this does feel like the pace I should be running at.

I’ve even got the running vest already! Julie very foresightedly ordered one for me in 2012 in our fundraising colours. It was the year I was doing my first Etape and Julie and Si were running the Budapest Marathon – so we got jerseys for all the events (Si completed that year, but Julie unfortunately had to pull out after a few miles with severe shin-splints). And even an extra running one for me, just in case, in the future …

I'm competing in memory of my sister Lynn who died In 2011 from bowel cancer. She was just 42. I'm raising money for the charity Bowel and Cancer Research. Lynn died less than a year after being diagnosed. 17,000 people in the UK die from bowel cancer every year. Bowel cancer still takes the life of nearly 1 in 2 people diagnosed. Bowel & Cancer Research are working to improve survival rates for bowel cancer sufferers through pioneering research into the spread and behaviour of cancer in specific at risk populations – which transfers medical research directly to the operating theatre or the patient bedside in the form of new diagnostic techniques and treatments. I hope my efforts will raise awareness and fundraise for this charity so that soon some answers to this awful disease are found and people diagnosed in the future will have a chance.