Emma Makin from Northwich, Cheshire, is taking on the Delamere Dash race next month in the picturesque Delamere Forest. Joined by family members, this will be Emma’s first running event. Here, she shares her personal reasons for taking on this challenge.

“After spotting the event on Facebook, I knew I had to sign up’, explains Emma. “Running has never appealed to me at all before, but it seemed like fate that the run is so close to home. It is the perfect way to raise money to try to help people like my dad.

“My dad, Andrew, is a retired meteorologist – he worked at various Weather Centres and RAF bases around the country, along with a detachment to Gibraltar. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in May this year; he’d actually gone into hospital in lots of pain with gall stones – Dad had a scan for this and then a shadow was found on his lungs that needed investigating.

“At this point, we were obviously worried, but we kept telling ourselves that it couldn’t be lung cancer because he’d never smoked, and he had no symptoms of the disease. It was a big shock when we were told it was lung cancer and that it had spread to his spine and brain. I’ll never forget my dad breaking down and telling us it was incurable. 

“The ray of hope for us has been that his non-small cell lung cancer is eligible for treatment using targeted therapy. He is currently on Osimertinib tablets, which will hopefully stop or slow the cancer from growing further. 

I knew very little about lung cancer before Dad’s diagnosis, but it has hit me now how important it is to get a national screening programme for the disease. It is so scary how lung cancer can spread so far without people having any symptoms, a national screening programme would mean people could be diagnosed earlier, giving them a better prognosis.

The race

“I’m starting to feel a bit nervous about Delamere Dash now that it is fast approaching! To be honest, I thought I was relatively fit until I started training but it turns out running is harder than I thought!

“I have found though that I’m managing to run further each week, so I’m sure all the training will be worth it. I’m also glad my brother, Ste, and husband, Martin, will be joining me, as well as my dad’s brilliant friends John and Hazel. 

“We’ve raised over £1,000 and are so touched by how much money we have raised so far; people have been so generous, and it really shows how loved my dad is by everyone.

“People have been so lovely since his diagnosis, and it has been such a help and comfort to us all knowing how much people care. I just hope now that we do my dad and everyone that has supported us proud at Delamere Dash and raise lots of money and awareness in the process.”