Pleased to say that I completed the London Marathon. I ran it in a time of 3 hours 48 minutes. I ran the first half in 1 hour 46 minutes which was much quicker than I intended so was therefore pretty much hanging on (for dear life itself at times) during the last few miles. But I am majorly happy with the time I ran and with the money raised for Maureen's Fund. Thank you so much for sponsoring me! Will add a picture once I work out how to do it. 😎

Firstly, thanks so much to everyone who has sponsored me up till now! I know there are very many worthy charities and causes competing for funds and so I do very much appreciate your generosity and your messages of support. Rest assured that the money is very well spent and will be a huge help to the Christie Hospital in the brilliant work that it does in its research and the treatment of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer. There is still time to sponsor me, and every single pound helps, so please feel free to forward the link to anyone else who you think might be prepared to contribute. Thank you. As promised, I have been training hard throughout the winter averaging about 40 to 45 miles a week. I can't pretend not to be a mass of aches and pains because I am and I've no idea how well the training will translate on marathon day itself. Goes without saying that my main aim is to complete the course (one way or another) and then anything after that time wise is a bonus. Obviously, there are loads of variables weather, injuries etc that can affect the finish time but whatever the circumstances I will be doing everything I can to run the very fastest time that I can on the day. I will let you know how I get on via this blog on the sunday evening, if possible. However, the main thing is the money raised for the Christie, so thank you all once again for that!

Dear All, Thank you for visiting the webpage! I was only allocated 500 digits on the 'about the event' section of the fund raising page (nowhere near enough for me) so I had to keep things fairly concise. Thought I'd now take the opportunity to write a blog (first time for everything) and provide you with a little more information on the brilliant work that the Christie Hospital does and some of its plans for the future: About The Christie: The Christie is one of Europe's leading cancer centres, treating over 44,000 patients a year. It is an internationally renowned experimental cancer medicine centre, and a recognised world leader in other forms of research and development. Over the next five years, the Christie has huge ambitions to continue to provide the highest quality care and treatment, whilst developing ever more excellent services and real patient benefits. For example, the Christie together, with its partners, is working to introduce the UK's first high energy proton beam therapy service. Proton beam therapy is a specialist form of radiotherapy that targets certain cancers - including ovarian cancer - very precisely, which will help the Christie to save as many lives as possible from cancers which other therapies are unable to treat effectively. Patients currently have to travel abroad for this treatment. As regards ovarian cancer specifically, the Christie see 300 new patients a year and review and/or treat 220 patients a week.There are a large number of treatments based on surgery, chemotherapy and novel trial treatments. Each year, the Christie recruit around 100 women, who have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, to partcipate in the clinical trial of new drugs. There have recently been some breakthroughs in the development of combinaions of molecular targetted therapies and anti vascular therapies. The results of the trials have been encouraging and they open the door to the more effective treatment of ovarian cancer in the future. Your sponsorship: You can rest assured that any money you are able sponsor me with will be money well spent!! Your sponsirship will be used to help fund crucial new research projects and buy specialist equipment aimed at providing effective treatment to women diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Undoubtedly, somewhere down the line, that money will help provide a happy outcome for someone. The Marathon itself: I should say that, in running the London Marathon, my aims are firstly, to raise an additional £2,000+ to help fund the Christie's work re:ovarian cancer (this will take the overall total raised by Maureen's Fund to well over £20,000); secondly, I'm determined to run the very fastest time that I can. At this stage, I have absolutely no idea what that time might be?! I've pretty much always run and I did do 3 hours 47 mins at the gym in August (which, in my opinion, is not bad for someone of 58 years of age) but it's totally different running outside and I haven't run on the roads for years (always in the gym) so I've no idea how things will translate. I'm gonna be training like mad though to get as fit as I possibly can. I will definitely keep you updated on my training progress. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your support! Much appreciated I will be very grateful for any sponsorship that you can provide! Kind regards Steve