On the 4th October 2020, my son Zak was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and my original thought at the start was how it was going to impact his life. 

Zak is incredibly sporty and regularly trains 3-4 times a week running and circuit training and my immediate thought was "he'll never be able to do the things he loved again". Little did I know about the advances of diabetic research in the years since I was at school.

Thanks to this research, Zak does have extra steps that he needs to perform in his life (blood checks and insulin injections) when he's eating and exercising but he can still do all the things that he enjoyed and recently finished his first Tough Mudder.

In light of Zak's new challenge with controlling his diabetes but made easier thanks to the milestones in research into diabetes and support from Diabetes UK, I wanted to give something back. I thus decided to challenge myself and signed up for the GB Ultras Chester 50 mile run.