I always liked long distance running as a kid but then I haven’t done any for 50 years. I decided last year that before I got too old I would like to have a go at the half marathon! I did the 90 Mile Beach Challenge in March and finished it in 3 hours and 16 mins. I was looking for a new challenge for this year so I was looking on the Run Walk series website when I saw that it was possible to run for Alzheimers Northland. I signed up straight away to join the Alzheimers Northland team. My mum died six years ago, she had dementia, it was so hard to slowly watch the progress of the illness. Your mother knows you one day and is eventually just saying “I can tell you are a nice person but I don’t know who you are.” And then three years ago my twin brother was also diagnosed with dementia. His was caused by a series of mini strokes, his wife is caring for him at home where they life in Australia.

I wanted to show my support for people affected by dementia and that’s why I am running for Alzheimers Northland. I started off my fundraising thinking, well I’ll try for $700 and we have got to that really quickly so I’ll try for another couple of hundred! I have done some fundraising online and some offline on paper sponsorship forms so that I can offer people a choice. The training starts now as I would like to cut some time of my run.

If you would like to support Diane’s run for Alzheimers Northland you can sponsor Diane online here

If you would like to join Diane and run for Alzheimers Northland you can find out more here.

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