At school, I was rubbish at running. With an undiagnosed muscular dystrophy condition, I didn’t realise that I had a really good excuse and just thought I was destined to be a sporting non-entity. 

Unfortunately I passed that condition on to my eldest daughter Alex who only went and completed the London Landmarks Half Marathon in 2022 which pretty much set me up to volunteer to do it in 2023. On my 57th Birthday! 

I started running three years ago and became the biggest running bore. My poor family had to pretend to be interested when I did a personal best on my thrice weekly 5k runs. Then I managed to develop a haematological condition and had to give up running for the last 18 months.  Alex’s amazing achievement in this year’s London Landmarks Half Marathon was the impetus I needed to start again.

When deciding who to raise money for from this challenge, I could have chosen one of the muscular dystrophy campaigns who do incredible research into the condition or I could have chosen the  amazing Haematology Department at St Georges who look after me so brilliantly, but there's a national charity with headquarters in Sheen (that Kate works for) called Missing People - and they want to support every person and family affected by the 170,000 people who are reported missing every year, including 70,000 children. You can read more about Missing People on their website at https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/ 

So don’t give me a birthday present this year. Instead donate to my fundraiser and help me to help Missing People fund the important work they do. And cross your fingers for me that I beat Alex’s half-marathon time