Running for the Riff Raff

In Sept 2016, I had major heart surgery: I'd found out a few months before that if the surgeons didn't give me a new heart valve I would die - which was a bit of a blow. And if that wasn't enough, three months after my op, I found out that my lovely partner Sarah, was terminally ill. And then I had 2 more ops: one on my eye and another to remove my gall bladder. So it's been a bit of a miracle that I'm of reasonably sound mind and physically fit. And I'm back running again. The Manchester Marathon will be my first half-marathon in 2 years - I'm doing the second lap of a relay. But I hope to get back to what I really love which is marathon running, and hope to be one of the few marathon runners with a mechanical heart valve. Sarah is ok for the moment as am I. Our resilience is at least partly down to the amazing support of friends, family and work colleagues. But there's one group we're proud to associate with: the Riff Raff Society. An ultra local group of madcap Mancunians who help local people facing genuine hardship. If you give to them, the cash goes straight to where it's needed. They offered us money to help build a garden room for Sarah - but with the amazing support of the people around us we managed to achieve that- and so happily turned down their offer. But they were insistent about helping us, and we ended up with a Riff Raffer every 2 weeks to work Sarah's precious garden. So please give generously to this amazing group. I've people to dig deep for our crowdfunding campaign -raising £20,000 for our garden room. We don't expect people to endlessly give, but if you do want to support the Riff Raff Society, here's a good place to do it. http://www.theriffraffsociety.org