Just over 7 years ago, I suffered a heart attack out of the blue. Thanks to our brilliant NHS, I was patched up with a couple of stents and given a new lease of life. To keep myself fit, I returned to something I loved doing when I was much younger – cycling.

I’ve done a couple of one day sponsored rides since then – but now it’s time to go big, and raise money to transform St. Mary's Church!

From June 24th to July 5th, I will be attempting to ride from Land’s End to John O Groats – the small matter of just over 900 miles in 12 days! That works out as an average of 75 miles per day.

So, why am I putting myself through this? It neatly combines two ambitions of mine:

• Land’s End to John O Groats is one of those challenges that, as a cyclist, I have just got to try. And at 63, it’s not something I can keep putting off!

• I want to help St. Mary’s Church Billingshurst where I am Vicar achieve the long-held desire to make our building more accessible and welcoming.

St. Mary’s is a 900 year old church building that stands at the centre of Billingshurst. It’s home to a lively church community, which wants St. Mary’s to be a place of welcome to all in Billingshurst.

The things we want to do are mostly about basic hospitality: providing toilet facilities, making the building accessible to those in wheelchairs, providing a secure vestry area so we can leave the church open during the day as a place of prayer for all. You can find out more about our hopes on our website here: http://www.stmarysbillingshurst.org/transformation/

Please support me in this endeavour! There are two particular ways that would really encourage me:

• Donate to St. Mary’s Transformation Project appeal

• Pray for me! I have done enough training to realise that this is a pretty big challenge that will definitely test me.

Thank you!!