Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

In 2012 I lost a good friend to cancer (PeteHolland), Pete had battled against cancer for many years, undergoing many operations and procedures. During this time he never lost his sense of humour, continued as much as he could with a normal life and was a real inspiration to all who knew him. Losing Pete inspired me to do something to raise money for Cancer research and in 2013 I completed my first triathlon raising £975. This was a big achievement for me becasue I hadnt done any type of training for nearly 10 years and at that time I swam/sunk like a fully laden pack horse..

Since then I have competed in 4 Sprint Triathlons, 2 Duathlons, 4 Olympic distance triathlons, 2 half Iron distance races and will compete in 4 further races in 2016 prior to IMUK in July, all without asking for sponsorship.

Since losing Pete, cancer has continued to affect the lives of my friends, work colleagues and family, who have had to undergo painful procedures to beat this disease. We lost a close family friend Tony Smith within a month of Pete passing away and a good friend(fellow triathlete) and colleague of mine John Barrett the following year.

However as more and more moneyis being used for researching this awful disease , more people are now surviving cancer than ever before. In fact 50% of people diagnosed with cancernow survive for 10 years or more. My mother in law was diagnosed with stage 1 cancer but catching it so early meant with treatment she, like others, made a full recovery.

This is why I have chosenCancer research UK to raise money for. With more money to research cancer therewill be more and more lives saved and hopefully one day a cure! Completing this Iron man will be a huge challenge for me, but nothing like the challenge cancer patients face every day and each step I take I will be thinking of those people mentioned above that I have lost and also thinking of the people that the money I raise may benefit in the future.

I have 10 months of hard training ahead of me before I take on the 3800m lake swim, 180km hilly bike ride and 42km marathon but knowing I have your support and that I am doing this for such a good cause will make me get up at 5:30am before work to get my daily swim, bike or run training in.

Thank you for your support