“The Tour of the TAP”, in association with Inchcape UK, is back and bigger than ever before as Cure Leukaemia Chief Executive, James McLaughlin, leads the charity’s upcoming “Your 14” campaign during Blood Cancer Awareness Month by once again putting his running shoes on in September.

Not set with “just” running 14km around each of the charity’s Trial Acceleration Programme (TAP) centres across the UK, he will then be running the London Marathon on Sunday 2nd October, just over a week after completing the final leg of his Tour.

The feat will see him run over 100 miles across a two-week period, before heading back down to London to tackle the world’s most famous marathon, to raise important funds for the 12 UK blood cancer centres that the charity supports.

The event has raised over £50,000 from the past two years to fund the charities TAP Network and he is aiming to bring his combined fundraising total for the event to over £100,000.

The TAP Network that Cure Leukaemia provides funding to consists of a network of specialist CL Research Nurses based in 12 of the UK’s biggest cities and a facilitatory Hub at the Centre for Clinical Haematology (CCH) in Birmingham.

The CL Research Nurses across the UK and the co-ordinating Hub allow these trials to run, giving patients from a catchment area of over 20 million people access to potentially life-saving treatments not currently available through standard care.

James will begin his challenge with two legs in London on Friday 9th September before working his way across the country, culminating in a final leg in Southampton on Friday 23rd September.

Speaking ahead of the start of the challenge, James said:

“A person is diagnosed with blood cancer every 14 minutes in the UK so that is why I have decided to again run 14km for patients at each of the 12 blood cancer locations we fund as part of the TAP Network – so there is method to my madness”

“The major change this year will see the Tour take place across Blood Cancer Awareness Month as part of our upcoming “Your 14” Campaign that is due to be launched shortly, in which we are encouraging the wider community to take part in any challenge related to the number 14.”

He is appealing to the Cure Leukaemia family to join him at various stages throughout his tour or challenge themselves at home to help contribute towards his fundraising goal.

Whether it is running 14 km yourself in your own time, challenging yourself to complete 14 press ups a day for 14 days, eating 14 hot chillies, wearing 14 jumpers for the day or walking 1.4km a day – the possibilities are endless and the wackier the better!

“It would be fantastic to see the CL family engaging with the challenge, whether it is joining me for a run on one (or more) of the stages, or it could be taking part in your own challenge.

All donations will make a huge difference to, not only beating last year’s £30,000 total, but raise vital funds for our Trial Acceleration Programme. We had some great support from the Clinicians and Nurses last year and it is the perfect opportunity to get involved and do something for Blood Cancer Awareness Month”

James will be visiting the following cities on the the following dates:

09/09/2022 – Guy’s and St Thomas/Kings, London
09/09/2022 – UCL, London
12/09/2022 – Birmingham
13/09/2022 – Nottingham
14/09/2022 – Manchester
15/09/2022 – Sheffield
16/09/2022 – Leeds
19/09/2022 – Belfast
20/09/2022 – Glasgow
21/09/2022 – Oxford
22/09/2022 – Cardiff
23/09/2022 – Southampton
02/10/2022 – London Marathon

We are on the lookout for businesses and organisations to sponsor the various legs of James’s tour from as little as £500.00.

If you are interested in getting involved with the Tour, please contact alex@cureleukaemia.co.uk.

You can donate to James’s “Tour of the TAPs” by visiting his JustGiving page at https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/tourofthetap2022