Brendan Donlon

Happy Friday to Brendan's Team!

Welcome to Brendan's Team – a group of people who, for reasons that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, agreed to move for 100km in June. That's just over 3km a day. A stroll over lunch break. A walk after dinner. A slightly longer route home. For some brave people, it's swimming… for others, I have to work out how to measure distances travelled by bell ropes. It all counts. Regular physical activity lowers your risk of bowel, breast, and womb cancer. So, we're not only doing this for the Marie Keating Foundation. We're doing it for ourselves too. We've got this.

Probably.

Before we start, a few things you need to know.

Logging your distances

This is the bit that took me an embarrassingly long time to find, so I'm saving you the trauma. The activity dashboard is at the link below. Here's where you log your kilometres - either by connecting your Fitbit, Strava, or Garmin, or just by typing in your distance manually.

https://fundraise.mariekeating.ie/login/activity

Bookmark it. You'll be using it a lot. Or at least, you'll be meaning to use it a lot.

Still want to bring someone else along?

If you know anyone who's been on the fence about signing up, they can sign up this weekend before the month kicks off. Here's the link to join Brendan's Team:

https://fundraise.mariekeating.ie/join/brendansteam

The more the merrier – and frankly, the more people there are on this team, the less pressure there is on any of us individually.

About the fundraising bit

I'll share a donation link once we're up and running in June. I want to be clear: your entry fee and participation can be your main contribution if that's what you prefer. No one on this team has to ask others for money – everyone is welcome here.

But.

The Marie Keating Foundation has a small team, many of whom are cancer survivors. They support people all over Ireland. They provide mobile nursing outreach, cancer information, awareness, and direct help for survivors. They've held the Charity Triple Lock for nine years in a row, which means every euro donated is accounted for and spent exactly as it should be. They receive tiny amounts of government funding, so this fundraising opportunity is very important to them.

In short: if you're comfortable asking friends, family or colleagues to sponsor your kilometres, please do. Every bit helps, and I'll make it as easy as possible when the time comes.

So. Monday.

Bank holiday. No excuses. Lace up, head out, and get the first few kilometres in. I'll be doing the same – and I'll be posting about it, because apparently that's what I do now…

Brendan