This year I decided – perhaps through boredom and people letting me down on cycling trips to Spain (from England) – that I was going to run the London marathon in April of this year. This was also the final year of three of my degree at The University of Cambridge in Computer Science, which meant that I had a dissertation to complete, as well as revising for my finals.

I completed the London marathon with my friend Ollie Gershfield this year, 2010 in April. Despite me doing a lot more cycling and general exercise than him, Ollie beat my time of 4 hours and 42 minutes with his time of 4 hours and 6 minutes. The final months leading up to the marathon I was working extremely hard and not focusing on my running which was perhaps a mistake for the marathon (although given a choice between running and working on my dissertation I think I made the correct long term decision) and so I am having another go at hitting under the 4 hour mark this November in New York (in fact just a few days away from writing this).

For the London marathon I managed to raise just under £21k for Norwood that looks after thousands of children with learning disabilities as well as children and families in need.

This November I am raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital which is another fantastic charity that help save children’s lives also. My target is to raise £50k which includes very generous personal, family and friend donations.

Having started work at Softwire recently I have gained a lot of support from colleagues as well as the company, both financially and mentally.

My donation page is http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/dezzy with Virgin Money Giving and not JustGiving since JustGiving are in it for profit and take a chunky 5% of the donations you generate. Virgin are supposed to be the best out there being non-profit and taking just 2% (as of November 2010) saving millions of pounds for charities.

I miss New York and am looking forward to running through all of the boroughs despite it supposedly being extremely cold at this time of year!