We’re a team of six medics – Tim, Drew, Donna, Jamie, Mike and Jim – who are training for the New York Marathon to raise £100,000 towards Cancer Research UK’s Catalyst Club, to make make personalised medicine a reality.

You can follow our progress, watch videos, and learn about oesophageal cancer at http://thecancermarathon.org/

The idea came about when Tim, an oesophageal surgeon from Southampton, told one of his patients that “having surgery to remove oesophageal cancer is like running a marathon without any training”.

The grueling surgery these patients face – known as an oesphagectomy – takes its toll on even the fittest of people. This conversation triggered an idea: could Tim enlist a team to run a marathon to raise crucial funds for cutting-edge cancer research and to raise awareness of oesophageal cancer?

Somehow he managed to round up a few willing (but unprepared) volunteers to dust off our trainers and take on the challenge. Now the six of us will spend the next 6-9 months training to line up on race day at Staten Island and run 26.2 miles.

We hope that you enjoy reading about our journey. But more importantly, we hope that we inspire you to donate to our cause. Your help will:

- Support an ambitious project to unravel the genetic code of one of the most deadly of all cancers, oesophageal cancer

- Lay the foundations for personalised cancer medicine in the NHS by funding CRUK's Stratified Medicine Programme

- Enable scientists to uncover cancer’s genetic secrets, which will lead to the development of new drugs and tests.

We know that, however hard running the streets of New York will be, we will recover.

The future is far less certain for people with oesophageal cancer.

Please donate whatever you can to help us bring forward the day that all cancers are cured.