I am running the Athens marathon in November 2013 for READ International; a great charity that I have vowed to help provide educational materials to countries in East Africa. I was aiming for the Rome marathon but due to personal unforseen circumstances including a bad anterior knee injury, my whole life seems to have been pushed back a few notches. I’m not going to lie; I’m more scared than excited. This is a massive challenge for me! I'm not the best runner at the moment so I will have a lot of training to do.

I have grade 3 Congenital Spondylolisthesis. This is a slippage of the vertebrae of around 65% in my lumbar spine. I will be dedicating a lot of time to training for this event despite chronic pain from a seriously skewiff spine.

I’m doing it because I can; I’m doing it because it will break my heart if I can’t get these books out to Children who need them. It might take me 7 hours, I might come last, I’ll probably have to walk some of it due to my back, but I can and will do this and your support will really spur me on, especially on difficult days.

My project involves collecting and sorting over 6,000 books from around the UK, before transporting them to school/ library renovation projects in East Africa. Your donations will be going directly to the logistics to get the books I have been collecting out to Africa.

Please donate because you can, donate because these children deserve the things we take for granted, they deserve a chance, and that chance is education. No donation is too small.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. The money you send goes straight to READ. So please dig deep and donate now & don't forget your gift aid!