Hopefully this time I won't end up in the back of an ambulance...

30 years ago, my Dad ran the Great North Run in a highly respectable time of 02:10. However, thanks to a muscle disease called myotonic dystrophy, if he were to do the same distance now it would take him considerably longer.

Myotonic dystrophy is a genetic disease characterised by progressive muscle weakness, wasting and stiffness plus a variety of other features. It affects about 1 in every 8,000 people. There is currently nothing that can be done to help prevent or reverse this, except one thing... research.

Muscular Dystrophy UK helps fund research to find effective treatments and cures of muscle-wasting conditions, while supporting the 70,000 people living with muscle-wasting conditions in the UK.

You help try to beat myotonic dystrophy, I'll try to beat Dad's time of 02:10 (for the THIRD time!)

Thank you!