At the beginning

Hi Nic,

Thank you for the support and best wishes.

Yes, January is a nightmare with the bills!!! Would be great if you can sponsor me, thank you very much.

I shall be writting and updating my blog on my fundraising, training and anything else that pops into my mind. Well thats of interest anyway.  I hope that from the blog and my experience I can write a book.  Very much a pipeline dream, especially as English didn't exactly come top of my subject list at school :/ Still a challenge is a challenge, and would be a great way of raising extra money towards Macmillan projects.

I've got another entry on the community blog about my radio debut on a local station.  Just off to write up a post analysis of my 15 mins of fame.

Hope you can follow my blogs and I hope they not only inform but entertain.  Please feel free to recommend my blogs, just giving address to others.

I'm open to feedback on the blogs, any fundraising ideas or training hints and tips.

Kind regards

Darren

www.justgiving.com/darren-price0

Hi Nic,

I dont mind you asking at all Nic.

For me its a number of factors I guess: I work in the NHS and so come across people from all walks of life with different illnesses, my main line of work is in cardiology, being a Cardiac Physiologist.  So I suppose its in my nature to help others where I can.  I started about 6 years ago raising money for charity.  This was when I started working in the NHS and I raised money for The British Heart  foundation, being it was tied into my work.  I ran the Great North Run (2006).  After this a group of friends and I rode from Lands End to John O'Groats (2008) in aid of Kidney research.  This was because in the group, were my best friend and his brother who both had acute kidney failure as children, making a full recovery.  They decided that on the 20th anniversary of their kidney failure they wanted to give something back by raise money for the charity, they asked if I would help. In 2010 my hospitals charity were raising funds for a new baby unit and asked for any staff willing to run the London Marathon for the charity.    I dont want you to think i'm blowing my trumpet by listing the challenges, i'm just giving you a feel for what i've done and some reasons why.

As you can tell, I like to challenge myself, which brings me to the trek for Macmillan. I read in a local paper about a womans aim of completing 12 physically demanding challenges for macmillan, whom have been supporting and looking after her mother. Unfortunately she lost her battle against a brain tumour late last year, after 10 years ish. She was asking for people to join her in the Everest base camp trek.  I emailed her and went from there.

Other than a friend I knew from school who died from breast cancer (Macmillan were an intergral part in her life), I have no first hand experience of the work mamillan.  Due to the help and support I heard about Macmillan giving I have always wanted to raise money for them. Seeing the article jogged my memory and I decided there and then, no excuses, it was time to fulfil what I had said all those years ago.

Inspiration is a factor too, you see all these celebrities giving up a lot of their time and energy into raising funds for different charities and I just think that as an individual, what can I do and give to help such worth while charities.  I can not deny that I do love to challenge myself and I want to extend my experiences in life and push myself out of my comfort zone. I hope to inspire others into achieving things they didnt think was possible or challenging for them, which in 2006, thats how I felt about the Great North Run.

This response is a little longer then I set out to write lol, but your question was a thought provoking one and one I hope I have answered for you.

Kind regards

Darren