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Bob Marsh, our Father-in-law and Grandad, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 8 years ago and whilst hand and arm shakes are increasing and other symptoms are emerging gradually, including stiffness and imbalance, he continues to be full of life, optimistic, funny and the spirit of any dinner party. Long may this continue and we are running this race for you and to hopefully help others with Parkinson’s.

The Great North Run is special for me personally as I competed in the first three races in the early 1980’s when I was a teenager, full of energy and pushing my boundaries. Now, not having done a half marathon for 30+ years, I will have the challenge once again to run from Newcastle, over the Tyne Bridge, past the famous Gateshead Stadium and all the way to the beautiful South Shields coast, where I grew up. It will be wonderful to have my parents there as they were all those years ago. Also very special will be to run this famous race with the next Buglass generation, my two sons, David, 20, who runs 80-100km per week, and Andrew, soon to be 17 and a promising runner. Both boys run like the wind so I like to think that I gave them my running genes, although they are much faster than I ever was. In this race of 56,000 runners, the biggest half marathon in the world, I hope to finish in the front third, in just over 2 hours; Andrew will beat me probably by about 30 mins and David hopes for a top 50 finish in a remarkable time around 1 hour 13mins. I will feel proud to run with our sons, with my wife Sally supporting us and making it all possible.

It’s a wonderful prospect that our efforts, with your kind support, can help the wonderful work that Parkinson’s UK is doing to understand this challenging illness and to hopefully one day help find a cure. Please make a donation and help us reach our target of raising over GBP 1100 for Parkinson’s UK. On September 11th I am sure Bob/Grandad will be watching this famous multi-coloured river of enthusiastic runners on the BBC and feeling as proud of us as we are of him.

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