I am running the Great North Run 2022 for the British Heart Foundation.

In 2012, my dad passed away suddenly from a heart attack, caused by Ischemic heart disease. We did not know he was had it.

It was a normal day for us all, my mum (Julie), sister (Laura) and myself were in the kitchen when we saw a police women come to the door, I think we made a joke about why they were coming up the drive. The next thing I remember is mam screaming and me and Laura running into the living room. The police women told us the news and we all cried. All utter devastated. Dad worked offshore on an oil rig, it is all we had known, dad not being there all of the time because of work, but we loved the phone calls and the days he came home. The excitement of seeing him was the best feeling. The day he passed, he was coming home for a course. He passed away in Scotland after getting off the helipad. That is all the policewomen could tell us. The next few weeks passed and the agonising wait to get dad home to the North East. Laura went to University and I went back to college. Looking back, I don't know how we did that so soon after, but we did. He would have wanted us to. Fast forward to now, 10 years have passed since he has left. A lot has changed, a lot of things Dad has missed out on, and that makes us sad. We think about Dad all the time, and always tell people stories about him and talk about the antics he would get up to now with his grandchildren. We all miss him dearly, and since his passing he has been joined by other member of our family who passed due to heart related conditions.

Dad, this one is for you. You would have said something like "I could do that easy, I used to run at school!", and you would have made a joke about it, so you better be running beside us in September. 

Everything I do, I do to make you proud.