Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I've been running for pleasure and leisure since the 1980's but this is my first marathon.

To mark this really important event in my life, I'm raising money for Children of the Andes (COTA). I've been living in Colombia for nearly one year and have become only too aware of how difficult the lives of vulnerable children can be. Over 1 million Colombian children are out of school.

COTA is a UK fundraiser for kids in Colombia. It has many partner organisations - e.g. working with street kids, helping those with HIV, protecting children via sports - but one of the main reasons for supporting COTA is the work they do supporting disabled children, via the Fundacion HRBC, which is based in Cali.

They can't solve all the problems but they do raise money that helps in some ways. For example, Victoria, the Events and Community Fundraising wrote to me with the following example:

Just to give you an idea of the impact of your support, £100 would pay for a nutritious snack every day for a month for 35 children and young people in a state of malnutrition and £50 could provide games, books, paper and pens for 8 former street children and their families to play and learn together over the course of a year.

I've set my target at £100 (around COP$300,000) but any donation of any kind for COTA would be super.

There is also the small matter of it being a great motivator for ensuring I complete this marathon, because although I've run several half-marathons and 10kms, running 26.2 miles is an altogether different challenge!

Thanks again for taking time to read this page.