After months of training, on the 14th April I will be running my first ever marathon in Manchester for two very worthy causes.

MNDA is a charity close to my heart after my uncle Stephen Melia succumbed to this dreadful fatal disease in October 2015 at just the age of 53 leaving behind a loving wife and two children. He was a senior Gaelic football player for county Louth in Ireland, were he made a record 179 appearances and captained them in 1991 and 1995. MND is a fatal disease that rapidly affects the brain and spinal cord leading to loss of muscle function and it has no cure. MND kills a third of people within a year and more than half within two years of diagnosis.