Over the last few years, my life and those of our whole family have been changed by my wife Caroline’s diagnosis of Young Onset Alzheimers Disease. It’s the most common form of dementia in the UK, usually affecting older people, but being increasingly diagnosed at younger ages. Dementia is not just ‘getting old’, it’s a brain disease that cruelly changes and steals away the people we know and love…….and aside from the strain of having to live with it day after day it forces career changes, and turns the life plans of all those close to the loved one upside down. Alzheimers is a terminal diagnosis; unlike cancer there is little effective treatment, no cure and very little support.

Sometimes, this leaves us feeling helpless and hopeless. Raising money for charity is empowering and positive so, on the day after my 58th birthday I’ll be attempting to complete my first marathon (my personal target, just to add a bit more of challenge, will be to to finish it in under 4 hours). I’ll be fundraising for Alzheimers Research UK, the nations leading dementia research charity, dedicated to causes, diagnosis, prevention, treatment and cure and a charity who’s vision is a world where people are free from the fear, harm and heartbreak of dementia. Backed by it’s passionate scientists and supporters, it is challenging the way people think about dementia, uniting the big thinkers in the field and funding the innovative science that will deliver a cure.

That cure will not come in time to save my beautiful wife, but by supporting me now you will be helping to fund vital research that may mean you or your own loved ones do not have to suffer in future.