Cancer affects every single one of us. In 2019, I found out on the top of a hill overlooking Barcelona after a gruelling week's cycling tour through the Pyrenees from Toulouse that my Mum's cancer had returned. She died within a fortnight, just nine months after retiring at the age of 70, not having had a chance to fulfil any of her retirement dreams. Cancer is cruel and if my efforts can help prevent just one other person from losing a loved one to this horrible disease, then it'll be so completely worth it.

The full £1500 I am working to raise will go directly to Cure Leukaemia (info on the charity below). I have paid my own £999 entry fee separately, covering all my travel, accommodation, food and the support team, which includes medics, mechanics and ride leaders. And the blood, sweat and gears will be all my own!

I will be riding the 500km from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park on Thursday 8 June, arriving at the Eiffel Tower finish line in Paris on Sunday 11 June along with 174 other riders. When my Mum died she left me a small inheritance and I used it to buy a new bike, the one on which I will be undertaking the challenge in her memory. Maggie Teal, my lovely bike, and I will be training hard from now until the event to improve my fitness and hit that fundraising target. Calorie counting incoming!

Follow me on social media to keep up with the progress:

Instagram @sarahwatmore

Twitter @SarahsCycling

And please donate what you can. 

Cure Leukaemia helps blood cancer patients to access pioneering drug and transplant treatments by funding a network of specialist research nurses across the UK. Without these nurses, to ensure patients are monitored and cared for, clinical trials of these new treatments would not run and patients, that have exhausted standard treatment options, would miss out on potentially lifesaving therapies. Every penny raised for Cure Leukaemia helps save lives and also hastens global progress towards the eradication of all forms of blood cancer.

Thank you x