Running in the dark

My last two runs have had to happen in the dark. This has not exactly been out of choice. The day goes on, and things happen, and you're just about to go and get changed to run when the baby needs changing, or is covered with a giant teddy by the toddler, or the school rings, or a parcel needs signing for, or you suddenly realise that the tax disc you were sufficiently organised to sort out has not actually got as far as the car and is now lost. And it gets dark earlier, and the children need to be fed and settled snugly to bed, and there's dinner to cook and it's half past seven and pitch black and you haven't run.

The ballot results came out last week and I didn't get a ballot place, so I am using the charity place Guys' and St Thomas' offered me. That's another layer of commitment, another set of people I'd be letting down if I didn't train, another level of accountability. I've already had a cheerful voicemail message asking how my fundraising's going.

Fundraising. Oh, yes, I have to ask people for money. I'm not a natural at this. I believe passionately in the Wegener's Trust. I can see how much we've already achieved. I know how much the money is needed, and how much value is being returned for the money we've already raised. But asking people to sponsor me takes me right back to those awful, awful Sponsored Walks at school. I remember sitting up with Mum, faking names in various handwritings so that I wouldn't lag too far behind the extroverts who presented their sponsor forms to the checkout ladies in the village supermarket and strangers on the bus with no self-consciousness whatsoever. I'm no Bob Geldof.

So as well as running in the dark, which is cold and dull and a bit frightening, because you never know whether the footsteps behind you belong to a mugger or to a real runner who knows what they're doing and wants to do it so much that they go out in the dark, I have to discover my inner Bob Geldof.

Dr D'Cruz and his team are researching a rare disease about which very little is known, but which kills people. James lives with it - he's well now, but it's there, always there, ready to pounce. I'm not the only one running in the dark.

As Sir Bob once said - Please, if it's not too much trouble, would you be good enough to sponsor me?