When my sister (Ronit "Ron" Milstein) called to say that she wouldn't be able to join our family birthday celebration as she'd felt a bit unwell on the train journey to London, I fully expected to be picking her up later in the day (Saturday 13th January 2024) for the drive home.

But when I got to St Thomas' hospital to collect her, the doctors that came to meet me on the ward were grim-faced and clearly had a difficult message to deliver. Ron hadn't made it. Her seriously diseased heart hadn't responded to treatment. She was dead.

I was completely gobsmacked. She was "only" 73, and looked after herself, exercising regularly, and particularly loved striding along the beachfront in her home town of Bognor Regis. But one thing she wasn't was unwell. She had no symptoms of heart disease, no signs at all. None.

There are more than 7 million people in the UK living with heart and ciculatory diseases and someone dies every 3 minutes as a result. That's 480 deaths EVERY DAY, more than 130 of them under 75.

The investment in research made by the British Heart Foundation has halved the number of deaths from heart and circulatory disease.

Which is why I've launched my QUAD CHALLENGE to raise money to help prevent any of us from being the unexpected victims of heart disease.

So what's my QUAD CHALLENGE? I'll be competing in 4 major running events:-

9th September 2024 - Great North Run Half Marathon 13.1 miles - COMPLETED IN 2hr 9mins, FINISHING 20,971ST OUT OF 60,000 RUNNERS.

20th October 2024 - Great South Run 10 miles CANCELLED DUE TO BAD WEATHER, BUT I WENT OUT AN RAN 17 MILES A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER

24th November 2024 - Florence Marathon 26.2 miles

27th April 2025 - London Marathon 26.2 miles