In 2021, our family’s life changed overnight. Our brilliant Husband, Dad, Grandad and Friend - Kev - was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. Although a disease we'd all heard of, it isn’t until it effects your own family that you truly begin to understand this horrible disease and potentially what the future may look like. If you’re
unsure yourself, here are some facts around MND:

• MND is life-shortening and there is no cure.  MND causes messages from the motor neurones to gradually stop reaching the muscles. This leads the muscles to weaken, stiffen and waste.
• MND can affect how you walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe. Some people also experience changes to their thinking and behaviour
• Symptoms also progress at varying speeds, which makes the course of the disease difficult to predict.
• There is a 1 in 300 risk of being diagnosed with MND. In other words, if you have 10,000 people in a stadium, 33 of them will get MND at some point across a normal lifespan.

One Sunday afternoon, beer in hand, I was watching the marvellous Kevin Sinfield run 101 miles in 24 hours and was inspired by such a wonderful achievement – raising over £2million for MNDA in
the process. I had always wanted to run the GNR, but never really had a reason to – until now! My target is to raise £5k for MNDA by completing the challenge on September 11^th 2022.

The MND Association are a fabulous organisation focused on improving access to care, research and campaigning for
those people living with or affected by MND in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Here is the difference you can make by sponsoring me:

• £10 will provide an information pack for someone newly diagnosed with MND.
• £75 will fund a researcher for half a day.
• £160 will l buy a specialist communication app enabling someone who has lost the ability to speak to continue to communicate with others.
• £600 funds a seat riser, allowing someone with MND to raise their wheelchair so that they can reach shelves and talk to someone at eye level.
• £2,250 provides a text to speech device, to give someone with MND the ability to continue to communicate with their loved ones.
• £4,000 funds a person with MND to participate in a clinical trial for a year, bringing us closer to a cure.

Although I am sure beer also played a massive part in the decision, 3 of my best mates: Alex Haycock, Ben Hickman and Samuel Oliver-Jones alongside my brother-in-law James Cross have also decided to complete this challenge with me – so please visit their pages and donate what you can.

For now, at least, our crying is done and we’re positive for what the future brings. All of us, including Kev, are looking forward to the quality time we’ve all got together and tackling whatever the coming weeks, months and years throw at us together.

From us all, thank you for sponsoring me and raising valuable funds for the MNDA.