I was diagnosed with Crohn's 10 years ago and became a member of Crohn's & Colitis UK but have never been able to attend WALK IT as the events are quite a long way from where I live. As part of the membership, I get various bits of useful information through and when the virtual event, My WALK IT, came along I thought "that's something I could do quite easily". I decided I would do that and raise funds as £100 seemed quite easy but then it just kept going on and on until we're now on £470, at last count.

We picked Tuesday 23rd June to complete our 10k walk as that was my 70th birthday and, having had to cancel a more sociable celebration, I wanted to do something to mark it nonetheless. I knew I could do the walk whilst shielding because I had already asked my GP about walking my dogs, Toffee and Oscar. Her advice was to find footpaths where I won't meet anybody so I'd already plotted some routes on public footpaths and along fields which I've been using to walk the dogs everyday.

I used to play golf twice a week so have missed being so active and look forward to getting back on the course soon! Until then, I'll continue walking and am pleased to have been able to do it for a cause too.

Expanding my usual routes for My WALK IT meant we actually completed 12k, accompanied by my wife, Rusty. This is longer than I usually do with the dogs but I knew the quiet areas which meant we could avoid seeing too many people and only had one encounter whilst completing My WALK IT. That encounter happened to be with another Spaniel so Toffee and Oscar had to say hello but we kept our distance!

To anyone considering My WALK IT, I'd say "just do it!".