I am doing this for several reasons, the first and most relevant is that my mum was diagnosed, albeit with early stage, breast cancer this year after finding a lump. At this point, following treatment (mammograms, biopsies, mastectomy etc) she is off work and just waiting for the next set of results, and I wanted to do something to make a difference for someone elses mum who maybe didn't notice her lump quite so early.
As I'm hoping to raise £1000, I am planning 3 "big" fund-raising adventures and several smaller ones:
1) LENT: Starting on wednesday! In recent years I have successfully given up alcohol (as a university fresher!), chocolate (second year at uni) and peanut butter (the biggest challenge of the lot!). This year I am going one step further and will be attempting to go for 40 days and 40 nights by eating ONLY raw fruit and veg. Which for me will mean giving up peanut butter, ice cream and starbucks!
2) OS Mountain Mayhem on 18/19th June: A 24 hour solo mountain bike race. But I won't go into too much detail about this as my entry is still pending and I know places are limited so i'm not going to get my hopes up just yet!
3) Lands End to John O' Groats in September (or June if I don't get the Mountain Mayhem entry!): A 10 day solo cycling trip from southwest england to northwest scotland... something I've always wanted to do, and that with the motivation of raising money for Breakthrough, should finally happen!
Smaller (but no less challenging!) Events will hopefully include Cardiff Half Marathon in October with Jess Deane (yes, Jess... you will be doing this with me!) and the Deva Diva's Triathlon, as well as others as and when I find them... but hopefully a long distance swim around somewhere warm!
If you've read this far, well done! Now for bit about breast cancer:
Breakthrough Breast cancer is a UK charity fighting breast cancer through research, campaigning and education with a vision to "work for a future free from the fear of breast cancer". So this appeals to the scientific student side of me!
Breakthrough is the largest and most influential UK breast cancer charity, investing nearly £53 million
in groundbreaking research since 1999. While supporting the
work of over 250 top scientists dedicated to breast cancer research.
And a bit about breast cancer itself:
- Nearly 48,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK.
- Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK.
- 1 in 8 women in the UK will develop breast cancer at some point in their lifetime.
- Around 1,000 women die of breast cancer every month in the UK.
- Around 300 men are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the UK.
- More women than ever in the UK are surviving breast cancer thanks to better awareness, better screening and better treatments.
Only 1 in 5 cases of cancer diagnosed tend to have some form of family history link - This is important as researchers believe more than half of breast cancers could be prevented if the causes were understood. So the Breakthrough Generations Study was launched– the world’s largest, most in-depth study of the genetic, environmental, behavioural and hormonal causes of breast cancer. Tracking more than 100,000 women for the next 40 years by collecting blood samples as well as questionnaire responses, the study is considered exceptional by world scientists and of critical international importance. There's a bit more about how lifestyle choices can affect your risk of getting cancer here: www.breakthrough.org.uk/riskreport
Thank-you for reading all my rambling, hopefully there'll be more updates as I go on, probably just whining about the lack of chocolate for the next six weeks! And if you feel I deserve some form of sponsorship (!) or believe in what I'm raising money then please go to my justgiving page at the following address and give as much or as little as you can:
Thank - you! Jene xx
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