In 2018, after what was thought to be chest infections, pneumonia, asthma...James was sadly diagnosed with Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) as an offshoot of a rare auto-immune condition. During the process of diagnosis, it was consistently been missed and overlooked, as it's such an unusual condition to be present in someone in their mid 30s.

There are over 150 types of ILD, all caused by loads of different things, and it's a disease I'd never even heard of, until I had to.

Interstitial Lung Disease scars the tissue in the lungs and damages the alveoli, which pass oxygen from the lungs through to the blood to keep us alive.

For Jim, when he was diagnosed, he had only 39% lung function remaining and it's been a journey and a worry ever since to measure, review and hopefully maintain that level so that he can live as normal a life as possible whilst still having this horrible, progressive disease.

Because ILD's tend to be progressive, research is imperative so that scientists can find a way to slow or stop this progression, for good. So many people are affected by ILD and there is so little research in terms of finding medications to support people with ILD live longer and have better quality of life.

We want to raise awareness of lung diseases via fundraising for the charity, Breathing Matters, who focus their work on research and development for all types of lung disease, including ILD, in the hope that one day, a lung disease diagnosis won't be so devastating for others.

Jim absolutely loves running and when he was diagnosed he was not able to run, only 18 months before diagnosed he ran a marathon and was really sad when his body couldn't do this with him any longer.

We've all been training (and he's probably better than the rest of us even with impaired lung function), but we're going to attempt the Manchester 10k and mostly be there by Jim's side to support him to do something he loves, even when it's about 60% harder for him that the rest of us.

If nothing else help a group of non-runners have a reason to get to the end!!!

Please, if you can, consider donating to this worthy cause and give the rest of us who are horribly unfit a reason to get out of bed and do this damn thing!