On 3 January 2017 Vicki and James Woodall (Woody) received the news that’s every parent’s worst nightmare. They were told by doctors at The Royal Marsden Hospital that a lump they’d found on their then four-year-old son’s back was in fact cancer, a rare PNET soft tissue Ewing’s Sarcoma.

From being a perfectly healthy and happy little boy George and the Woodall family’s lives changed overnight. Over the course of 2017 he endured 14 rounds of chemo, had part of his spine removed during 10 hours of complex surgery and received proton therapy in the USA thanks to the NHS.

Vicki and Woody are trying to make the best of their bad situation and, despite navigating George’s difficult cancer journey, supporting his older brother and trying to maintain some semblance of family life, they pledged to raise £1,000,000 to help beat childhood cancer.

Since being introduced to George and the Giant Pledge I've been inspired to use some of my running adventures to support their goal of beating childhood cancer.  My first event coincided with George recovering from his first round of surgery and when my back and legs began to ache it was impossible to complain given all he was going through.

My January challenge is the Yo-Yo accumulator starting with running 31-miles on January 1st and reducing by a mile each day to 16 miles before increasing again by a 1-mile a day to finish with 31-miles on 31st January.  It will be a total of more than 736 miles for the months and the first time I've done 6 marathons in 6 days and back to back weeks of big mileage...having to keep getting out each day is going to be tough but it's nothing compared to the endurance required by those families battling childhood cancer.

3 to 4 hours running each day will give me plenty of time to pray for George, Vicki, Woody and Alex plus the many families I don't know who are facing horrible circumstances.

You can find out more about what George and the Woodall's are going through right now at https://www.facebook.com/georgeandthegiantpledge/.  Have a read and if you're able please do encourage them and me with your support.