Our father Paul Race, a dear friend to a lot of people, was diagnosed several years ago with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis - a rare and degenerative lung disease which affects the body's ability to take in oxygen. 

Over the past 3 years our father's condition has gotten worse.  He has always managed it well, and until recently had continued to ski/walk/(and drink on) "his mountains" - the famous Leogang-Saalbach-Hinterglemm "Ski Circus".

Our father was lucky enough to be selected to partake in a clinical trial for a new drug that would prolong the life expectancy of sufferers. This gave him, and us, something positive thing to focus on - both for his own condition but also for others. 

Pulmonary fibrosis is a disease that the medical profession do
not know enough about. In fact, Idiopathic means 'without a known cause'. Yet research has shown that with the right level of funding we are only a matter of years away from developing drugs to limit and reduce the daily impact to sufferers - breathing, walking, dependency on oxygen, etc. Who knows... we may even be close to finding a cure. 

Unfortunately, last year our dad was dealt 2 big blows back-to-back. He was diagnosed with bowel cancer, and then shortly after, secondary lung cancer. Our dad was not able to continue on the clinical trial as he was operated on under anesthesia (which invalidated his trial results). He therefore had to leave the trial.  He had 2 operations to take out the tumors late last year. A hard winter followed where he caught numerous chest infections and struggled to maintain a level of stability in terms of his health and quality of life. 

I am delighted to say that he has just passed the first 6-month milestone of being cancer free! But the hard winter as come at a cost. Our fathers lung disease has deteriorated meaning his lung capacity has reduced further still. 

We would like to support our dad and other sufferers by raising as  much money and awareness of the disease as possible. We have chosen to do this by taking on a challenge that combines our fathers two big passions in life...skiing and walking, in his beloved adopted country.

We intend to walk a route in Austria which is normally skied or snow-boarded. It is called the Ski Circus, and as a family we have enjoyed doing it with many of our friends for years. The route is 166 km of skiing (not including lifts) which is a push to ski and finish in one day. We intend to walk it in 3 days.

The route starts in Leogang, you head over to Saalbach town before heading up the south facing side of Hinterglemm. You drop into the town and head up the north facing side and head back over to the top of Saalbach before dropping into Vorderglemm. You then head back up to the top of Saalbach before returning back to Leogang. All in all you do 5 mountains of skiing. We intend to walk it in 3 days...no easy task for the Race boys! Sadly, Dad will not be able to join us on the walk. 

We ask you all to dig deep and please donate what you can. Please share this with your friends and family and help us reach our  5,000 target for the benefit of Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis. The mission of this great charity is to advocate for patients and provide support, raise awareness, and support research into improved outcomes and medical understanding. http://www.actionpulmonaryfibrosis.org/about-our-charity/ 

We thank you all in advance.

Team Race 

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.