Well, here we go!! I am a week away from sipping a cocktail (non-alcoholic of course!) beside a pool in the sunshine and eleven days away from my first 150-mile jaunt across a desert! And having worked long hours for the last two weeks I am looking forward to both.

The Velcro for my gaiters is on my trainers, the patches are on my tops and all my kit is lying out on my spare room bed, the only problem I can’t get away from at the moment is the fact that I don’t think all my kit is going to fit into my rucksack. This is when I know that all the men reading this (my husband!) will go ‘yup, typical female, can’t pack light’, but I honestly have only a few extra things!

The last few weeks have been spent treating my nearest and dearest to meals of dehydrated Shepherds pie (my mother actually thought it was quite tasty!!), talking my grandfather through the 4 Deserts website as he has just been given a laptop for his Birthday (his first experience of the internet) and giving the 4deserts website details out to friends and family hoping that I will receive at least one email!

I am getting a bit nervous and excited about the whole adventure now. It seems a long time ago that I was sitting having Sunday lunch with my sister and we were chatting about doing a race or challenge to raise money for Macmillan. Seven months later we have signed up for one of the hardest races in the world, raised over £10,500 and our bags are packed!! I knew I should never have met her for lunch that day!!

www.justgiving.com/4desertsisters  

Having scrolled through all the Blogs on this site over the last few months, I have finally bitten the bullet and logged on to write my own. I had put it off, as I didn’t see any reason to write a blog until something happened to me the other day.

I was at a good friends leaving lunch and sitting quietly watching the after meal speeches when something unexpected happened. At the end of her speech, Micki McMullan (sorry for mentioning your name!!), explained why she had asked for her leaving present to be a cash donation and not the usual framed picture, etc. She explained that she wanted to support somebody by giving all of her leaving present money to somebody about to run the 4 Deserts – me!! It suddenly dawned on me that I am no longer running the Sahara 2008 for myself; I am running it for everybody who has already sponsored me and those that will do so in the future.

Up until then I had seen the Sahara race as just an amazing opportunity for me to do something that not all ‘normal’ people get to do, and raise an amazing amount of money for Macmillan Cancer Research. Micki – thank you for making me realise that there will be so many people out there with me, maybe not physically – but spurring me on from the UK to finish this difficult race, and this is why I will now start to write my first ever blog!!

www.justgiving.com/4desertsisters