I'm racing at Silverstone!

Silverstone Wing and International Pits Straight. © James Muscat

It started, as these things occasionally do, with a dream.

The home of the British Grand Prix. The 3.66-mile ribbon of tarmac graced by the likes of Schumacher, Alonso, Button, and Hamilton, not to mention their many peers and forerunners. The magnificent, high-speed Maggotts/Becketts/Chapel sequence of corners. I'm a huge motorsport fan (some would say 'obsessive'); how could I pass up the opportunity to enter a race at Silverstone?

The only trouble is: I'm not going to be in a car. I'm not even going to be on a bike. I'm running the Silverstone Half Marathon on March 15th, and I'm doing so to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

Back in October, I had a dream in which I was running the Silverstone Half Marathon, and no, I don't know why. The most puzzling part of the dream was that I was running the wrong way around the track when I got to the finish line. I happened to mention this to a serial marathon-running colleague, who looked up the route map to discover that, in fact, the last lap of the race is run against the usual flow of the circuit!

Curious, but not enough to make me sign up for the darn thing. No, that would be the fault of another serial marathon-running colleague, Cristin. You can read her side of the story on her blog.

Both of those colleagues are also running the race with me, and Cristin and I are fundraising together. Please would you take a moment to visit our fundraising page, and sponsor whatever you feel you can?

Another curious part of that dream came after I'd crossed the finish line. I got a celebratory kiss from the girl who, in real life a few days later, would become my girlfriend... but that's another story! Her mum has, after a year-long fight, beaten cancer; that's one of the reasons I chose to raise money for Cancer Research UK. A colleague of ours is also fighting her own fight right now.

If you can, please sponsor us to the chequered flag (there had better be a chequered flag!), and help CRUK continue their work against cancer.

Our fundraising page is at Virgin Money Giving.

Wet GP3 qualifying, Silverstone 2014. © James Muscat