In February this year, one of my daughters was diagnosed with type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetes.  This was quite a shock and she was immediately admitted to hospital, where we learned an enormous amount in a few days.   Type 1 is not a lifestyle related condition; it is an auto immune condition which causes the body's own 'killer' T cells to kill off the pancreas's insulin producing beta cells. 

What this means is that before eating or drinking anything my daughter has to calculate how many grams of carbs it contains and inject the appropriate amount of insulin, then wait 20 minutes before eating.  This is something I would definitely struggle with and I am not a teenager!  She has to inject insulin at least 4 times a day as well as frequent monitoring of her blood glucose by painful and inconvenient finger pricking.

I am running - slowly! - towards a world where diabetes can do no harm and in support of my amazing daughter who is dealing with her condition brilliantly. 

I am not a natural runner, as anyone who knows me will tell you; I find it really hard and not very enjoyable.  However when I am finding the training hard, I remind myself that it's nothing compared to living with type 1 diabetes.  I did a half marathon once before, and afterwards I said 'never again', but about 4 weeks after the diagnosis I got an email from Diabetes UK asking for volunteers to run the Royal Parks half marathon to raise money for research...  about the only thing that could have convinced me to lace up my running shoes again was something affecting my family directly, so I signed up, I'm training and I'm determined!

Please sponsor me if you can; I appreciate every contribution which will make a difference to research to find a cure quicker, and also helps my motivation on every training run.

Cures for both type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes have not yet been discovered, but progress is being made to prospectively cure type 1 diabetes in this generation and this can't come soon enough.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.