Colin's 365challenge for Cancer Research

Cancer is not a single entity: there are around 200 different types of cancer, some very common and well known, like breast, prostate, bowel or lung cancer, which together account for over half of new cancers identified each year, while others are much rarer, like the one I had - a soft tissue sarcoma, of which only 1300 are diagnosed in the UK every year.

I'm raising money for Cancer Research UK for a couple of my own very personal reasons:

On July 7th 2008, I lost my older sister, Brenda, to secondary cancers arising out of breast cancer, at the too-young age of just 52. She fought long and hard, but couldn't win this one. She left behind three grown up children, Jonathan, Emma and Leah, along with Etaine, who turned just 9 years old on July 16th.

But both these experiences have spurred me on to try to do something to support those people working to overcome cancer, and so I devised the 365challenge. Basically, I plan to undertake a series of tough physical sponsored challenges - including

• cycling from John o’ Groats to Lands End;
  
• rowing the length of the River Thames;
  
• swimming the English channel
  
• and climbing the height of Britain's 3 highest mountains,
  

over the course of one year - my 365challenge days - I will use equipment in my local gym to build up the distances required over time to achieve each final target distance.

I've given myself a target of raising £3650 across the year, and if you'd like to help me achieve that, please get in touch, or visit my 365challenge website - www.365challenge.co.uk.

I've also set up a blog to help you keep up-to-date with my progress. Click here to read about how I'm getting on: 365'er

Any support you feel you can give me will go some way to helping overcome this terrible disease.

And many thanks for all the support I've had to date.

Colin