Hello, welcome and thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

My name is Dan Dickinson, in my day job I’m a commercial Interior Designer and in my spare time I am very much a family man who loves to spend  time with my partner Angie and my two year old daughter Brooke. Also in my spare time I love to challenge myself, most recently taking on and conquering an Ironman Distance Triathlon.

Whilst training for my Ironman I was faced with an even bigger challenge however when I was diagnosed with an invasive malignant melanoma (skin cancer). Although I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones because my cancer was caught in the early stages, and following various surgeries and treatments I am now cancer free. But on reflection the whole experience has made me think about how I might be able to help those who are not as lucky as I was. It was also not long ago that I heard about a family that I know who recently found out that their son has leukaemia. So I thought what better than try to raise money for the children’s cancer charity Candlelighters who have given this family some amazing support by doing yet another triathlon.

So since January I’ve been in training getting myself ready to take on the British Middle Distance Triathlon Championships at Belvior Castle in Leicestershire on Saturday 8 June. The race is called ‘The Beaver’ (no laughing!) and takes place amongst the stunning grounds of the castle and its surrounding area. The race covers a 1.9k swim followed by a 74k bike ride and finishes off with a 20k run. I’m aiming for a top ten finish which is probably a little hopeful but ‘what the heck’ i’m up for some hard training and will mean around a 4hr time for the whole race and likely 12-15hrs training per week from now until the race.

(Also as part of my training for the race i will be taking part in the Leeds Half Marathon in May, and challenging myself even further by running the York Marathon in October)

So please dig as deep as you can and donate to help Candlelighters to support children, teenagers and their families fight children’s cancer.

(To find out more about Candlelighters, please visit their website www.candlelighters.org.uk)