On 21st May this year my beautiful wife Gill passed away after 15 months living with Stage 4 Melanoma cancer of the brain, liver and lung. Gill my biggest supporter , motivator and the love of my life, I will never get over losing her but I know that at some point I will get used to living with her loss. I want to make us both proud and I know she’d be cheering me on in fundraising for Melanoma UK who have been there for both of us from the day she was diagnosed.

I’ve previously jogged 4 marathons and numerous other events over shorter distances. My fastest marathon was just after Gill and I got married in May 2014, she was at every event, cheering me on, dropping me off, collecting me, travelling halfway across London to see me at mile 21 of my first London Marathon and reassuring me that I could do anything that I wanted to if I put my mind to it. She was right I could, but having her by my side was my biggest motivation
Since Gill died, exactly 4 months ago, I constantly think of what she’d be saying to me now. On the days where I don’t want to get out of bed she’d be telling me to “get up or you won’t sleep tonight”. When I’m crying my eyes out in the early hours she’d be saying “stop now you’re just going to have puffy eyes in the morning”, no one likes a puffy wife” and when I decided to run a marathon on 4 weeks training she’d absolutely be telling me to go for it. So that’s what I’m doing and on 4th October I’ll be running/walking/crawling for 26.2 miles along the Union Canal towpath.
Please come out to support me (whilst adhering to social distancing obviously!) the route will take me from Linlithgow to the canal basin at Broxburn, through Ratho Village, alongside Wester Hailes Quarry Park and I’ll finish at Saughton Park. I plan to start at 10am and all going well it will take be around 5.5 hours. VLM will release a runner tracking app shortly before the run and friends and family will be able download this and track my progress on the day.
Thanks for reading and for supporting me, and if you can, Melanoma UK. All donations to this amazing charity will be so gracefully received 🙏🏻 xx

Leighanne Baird-Sangster