Earlier in the year my dad - a previously fit and healthy man with no history of a heart condition - developed Sepsis and was admitted to intensive care. After a week in our local hospital his condition had worsened, with the sepsis starting to shut down all of the organs in his body. The hospital advised us that he'd have to go to Harefield for emergency surgery and he was airlifted to Harefield where they performed open heart surgery on dad for 8 hours.

A month later dad was back at our local hospital and a few weeks later back at home, where he is now recovering. Harefield hospital saved his life and my family are so incredibly grateful for that.

Harefield were the first hospital in the world to perform a heart and lung transplant, back in 1983. The work they do is absolutely critical to the ongoing advancement of heart and lung surgery - so if you are lucky enough to never have friends or family treated at Harefield, the likelihood is that their pioneering work has or will inform the treatment of someone you know at some stage.

I'm doing the Hyrox fitness race at Excel on Saturday 30th April and raising money for Harefield. The race consists of an 8KM run in total, with each kilometre separated by a different task - so I'll be doing things like a 1K row, a 1K ski erg, weighted walking lunges, sled pushes and pulls and wall ball shots in between each kilometre of running.

Hyrox is also a huge personal milestone for me - many of you will know that I had an accident nearly 6 years ago which resulted in multiple fractures of my pelvis and back - and so being on the start line for this event has been the result of many, many hours of work in the gym over the last 6 years. I also turn fifty 2 days before the event so I thought what better way to raise money for Harefield and to also show what you can achieve with hard work at the age of 50 than by taking on this event.

Please do consider donating to my Hyrox challenge if you are able to - Harefield are a wonderful hospital who have saved - and continue to save - so many lives.

Thank you.

Kate Lemon