ONE of the nice things about being a local journalist, and being part of the community you serve, is that you run into stories all the time.

There I was, going for a morning jog round my home village of Hurworth-on-Tees, near Darlington, when I stopped to have a chat with neighbour, Jeff Pow.

To be honest, I was glad of the excuse to stop for a breather. I'd been running for a full 20 minutes and I was knackered.

I knew Jeff's wife Viv had been extremely ill with cancer and I asked him how she was doing.

"Great," he replied. "She's running the Rome Marathon next week."

It turns out that Viv, a former policewoman, has now run eight marathons. She ran the Yorkshire Marathon just a year after being diagnosed with bowel cancer and undergoing surgery and chemotherapy.

When the cancer returned, she had her whole colon removed but within three months, she was running the Darlington 10k in a personal best time.

A reporter was briefed and we published Viv's inspirational story last week. She runs the Rome Marathon on Sunday and there'll be an update by The Northern Echo on how she gets on.

Every now and then, you hear about stories which are really humbling. There was me, puffing and panting round the village for 20 minutes, with no health problems, and generally making hard work of it. And there's Viv Pow, running marathons in the midst of her exhausting fight against cancer.

She told me: "I don't know what I'm doing is amazing - I just think life is amazing and you have to live it."

If, like me, you think Viv Pow is actually quite amazing and want to show your support. donations can be made in aid of Bowel Cancer UK by going to justgiving.com and searching for Vivianne Pow.