My 2017 London Marathon Challenge really begins!

With my place confirmed on the Epilepsy Action London Marathon team 2017 now seems to be a good time a step up both my training and fundraising as both are a huge challenge but one I am looking forward to.

So I want to start by sharing why running the London Marathon is such a huge challenge for me. I have always wanted to run the marathon I guess it's one of my biggest life goals. At school I did long distance running, something very few people were keen on! I ran 1500m at all the school competitions not because I was an amazing runner but more because noone else wanted to and I used to run 10k in sub 1 hour so I wasn't a bad runner and I enjoyed it!

However I had my first big tonic-clonic seizure, 12 years ago, walking home after a training run, I had my second seizure while running with my athletics club and I had my forth seizure on a treadmill. I quickly lost confidence in running, put the challenge of running a marathon to the back of my mind along with the idea of driving. That diagnosis of epilepsy really knocked my confidence but it was Epilepsy Action who gave me hope that I could live a full life.

In the past 10 years my volunteering with Epilepsy Action has given me a purpose, I feel like my epilepsy diagnosis has given me an opportunity to help others, that something positive has come from it.

By giving epilepsy presentations to care providers, businesses and other groups I have helped make our world a more understanding place for people with epilepsy. By helping at events I have met so many amazing people effected by epilepsy, their stories have inspired me to do more with my life and I hope my story has helped others to. By getting involved in campaigning I hope I have helped make a small change to the bigger system that means others with epilepsy won't have to go through some of the more negative experiences I have had to fight my way through.

So now I want to achieve the life goal epilepsy made me place on the shelf so many years ago, I am going to run the 2017 London Marathon and I couldn't imagine running it for anyone else other than Epilepsy Action.

Running the marathon is a big enough challenge in itself but the fundraising goal I have is also a pretty big goal for me too, and something I have never really done before.

So I ask you my friends to help me with this, it doesn't have to be by giving money (although if you can spare a little that would be amazing, you can visit my just giving page here) just words of encouragement to get out there running when it's cold and wet would be amazing. I'll also be holding cake sales and hopefully an auction of promises so it would be great to see you at them, just watch this space.

So the challenge begins, here we go!