Like many great stories and ideas, this one started with one too many glasses of wine on the sofa...

Stacey and I decided it would be a good idea to enter the ballot for the Great North Run. Neither of us are natural runners, nor when entering, did we actually expect that we’d ever actually get a place.

But, of course, we both did….

Fast forward several months and we’ve been training on and off, gradually coming to terms with the fact that we really are going to have to run 13.1 miles from Newcastle to South Shields!

Neither of us are expecting to trouble the elite field, but we’re going to give it our absolute best shot — and I wanted to use the challenge to raise money for a charity that means a huge amount to me: Radio Tyneside.

My love for radio goes back a long way. As a kid, I was forever pretending to be a presenter, armed with a cassette recorder and repeatedly recording over tapes as I desperately tried to press record at exactly the right moment a song started — and stop it before the DJ started talking again! (I don’t think I was the only one!)

So getting the opportunity, all these years later, to sit behind a microphone and present on the radio is something pretty special to me.

But it’s also given me the opportunity to be part of a brilliant team of people who give their time to provide entertainment, community updates and important health and wellbeing information to people across Tyneside.

It’s a fantastic local charity, powered by volunteers who genuinely care about what they do, and I’m very proud to be a small part of it.

So, when I inevitably find myself questioning my decisions somewhere around mile 10 — wondering why on earth we ever opened that second bottle of wine — I’ll have a pretty good reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Every donation, however big or small, will help Radio Tyneside continue the brilliant work it does for people across our local community.

If you’re able to sponsor me, thank you — it really does mean a lot. And if you can share the page too, that would be hugely appreciated.

Here’s to 13.1 miles, an unforgettable day, and hopefully raising a fantastic amount for Radio Tyneside.

Wish us luck — I think we’re going to need it!