I may have run hundreds of miles and cycled thousands of miles for this charity already, so why am I doing it again? At a recent event I went to, one of the organisers of BRF turned to me and told me a story of a young boy who had recently benefited from a BRF program.

This boy was once a very shy and completely unemployable teenager leaving school with no qualifications. His life had been a series of moving from foster home to foster home, living out a suitcase and not knowing where he would spend his next Christmas. He took part in a BRF programme to help improve his confidence and employability by using sport as an opportunity to work on his skills and bring out the best in him.

Months later he had the confidence to stand up in front of an audience and give a talk on his experience, in that talk his word were very clear "the Bath Rugby Foundation has changed my life" - these words have resonated with me so much and made me realise, whilst we are off running or cycling in foreign countries we are doing it for a reason, not for fun but to change children's lives and give them a chance that they otherwise may never have.

Lydia Excell