"Cure Leukaemias funding of the UK Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP) is a game-changer and increases the access for blood cancer patients to potentially transformative new therapies."
Sir John Bell
“The Tour of the TAP” is back for 2021
11th November 2021
“The Tour of the TAP” is back as Cure Leukaemia Chief Executive, James McLaughlin, dusts off his running shoes once again to run over 100 miles across 14 days to raise important funds for 12 UK blood cancer centres that the charity supports.
The feat is the equivalent of completing four marathons as he aims to raise vital funds for Cure Leukaemia (CL) and top the £20,000 he raised last year!
The TAP Centres, that Cure Leukaemia provides funding to, stands for Trials Acceleration Programme and 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. Cure Leukaemia made a 3-year £3,000,000 commitment to funding in January 2020, to enable the accelerated setup and delivery of pioneering and potentially life-saving blood cancer clinical trials.
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 in Belfast on Wednesday 17th November at the Belfast City Hospital before working his way across the country, culminating in two final runs in London on Wednesday 1st December.
James successfully completed the challenge virtually over 28 days in 2021 but this year’s challenge will see him look to conquer all 112 miles in half the time!
Speaking ahead of the start of the challenge next week, 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 – so there is method to my madness”
“Training has been going well over the last few months, but I am under no illusion that this will be one of the hardest things I have done! It will be nice to see all of the Centres and the nurses again after such a long time and this will provide me with the motivation to complete each of the twelve runs across the three weeks.”
“I can’t wait to get to Belfast to start the challenge and kick off this year’s “Tour of the TAP”. Because of coronavirus last year, I wasn’t able to run from the Centres so it will be fantastic to get to meet the Clinicians, Nurses and patients this time around as I look to beat last year’s total of £20,000.”
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 or walking 1.4km a day – the possibilities are endless!
“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 £20,000 total, but raise vital funds for our Trial Acceleration Programme.”