Race for Life – will Fearne Cotton sponsor me a fiver? Please…

Yes, I ran through the woods in the light of day dressed like that! I am hoping to get sponsors for Race for Life, Telford, on July 12.

I have so much admiration for Fearne Cotton for not turning back when she was clearly struggling to get up Kilimanjaro for comic relief. Something she said, when she started to get some relief from the altitude sickness, really stuck in my head. She said something like: “Never under estimate feeling normal.”

I hope Fearne can remember saying it because I, and others like me who have been through treatment for cancer or another serious illnessess, can truly relate to it.

It’s the Race for Life in Telford on July 12 and I am running, or trotting, to mark the end of my 22 months of treatment for breast cancer. It is a real celebration of feeling ‘normal’ again. As Fearne said, we must not take this feeling for granted.

When my hair fell out during chemo my husband shaved his head and raised more than £2,500 for the Lingen Davies Cancer Centre Appeal at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Everyone we know was so generous last year and I do not expect them to dig deep again for the Race for Life.

But I really wanted to raise awareness and encourage people to give some thought to those who are feeling under the weather. I want people who are feeling fit to shout out to the world: “I am so happy to be healthy.”

I thought it might help to raise awareness if I, through social networking, tried to contact Fearne to ask her to ’sponsor me a fiver’. Wouldn’t it be great if she did? It’s a bit like that documentary made by Brian Herzlinger, My Date with Drew, where he has only 30 days to get a date with Drew Barrymore. Only I am not asking for a date thanks Fearne, just a fiver….. please. And I have just 12 days to try to make this happen.

I have been inspired to try out this social networking experiment through my role as a blogger on the Shift Time festival of ideas which is taking place in Shrewsbury soon. I have been following Fearne on twitter for a few weeks now and have just learned that she is a new blogger, like me!

Apart from Fearne, I would be really grateful to anyone else who could spare a few pounds towards this worthy cause – Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life. You can sponsor me my visiting my fundraising page here.