Through our supernanny Dawn we have had the absolute pleasure of getting to know a lovely, cheeky, energetic 4 year old boy called Fraser. He is now a firm friend of our 4 year old daughter Martha.

Fraser was born with Neuroblastoma which caused a tumour on his adrenal gland when he was just 4 months old. For the first year of his young life, Fraser spent most of his time living in Great Ormond’s Street Hospital. Since then he has had procedures to remove a brain tumour with associated high dose chemotherapy, radiotherapy and stem cell removal / reintroduction. Every 6 months he has to have a general anaesthetic so he can have an MRI scan to spot any new tumours forming.

Most of us can only begin to imagine the huge anxiety and distress this causes to the children and families affected. When Fraser was younger he and his family received invaluable support in the form of Dawn who was working for Rainbow Trust at the time Fraser’s condition was diagnosed. Rainbow Trust is a charity that provides on-going practical support to families who have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness.

As the father of two girls, I can’t think of anything more traumatic than having a son or daughter diagnosed with a life threatening condition. I've decided to support Rainbow Trust in whatever way I can so that other families can get support from people like Dawn when they most need it.

During the month of March I'm going to try to clock up 2012 kilometres, mostly off road, on my trusty mountain bike. I’m estimating it will take me 3-4 hours for each of the 31 days in March to clock up the required distance. I’m no serious cyclist so I’m hoping that my ageing body can cope with the ordeal!

I’ll be recording the mileage on a GPS unit to ensure accuracy and I’ll be blogging every day here if you want to check in on how I’m doing.

http://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/user/sanderr2

I would be very grateful if you could support me by sponsoring my efforts. Thanks in anticipation and wish me luck - I suspect I'm going to need it!

Rob