A BUSINESSWOMAN is swapping her laptop for her running shoes after signing up to take part in The Great North Run in memory of her grandmother.

Lisa Johnstone, of Gainford, in Teesdale, recently started her own business in web development and e-learning and runs about four times a week to get out of her office.

Two years ago she joined the Quakers running group in Darlington and ran her first Great North Run last year as a personal challenge.

However, this year she has decided to take on the challenge in aid of Alzheimer’s Research UK in memory of her grandmother, Betty Bell, who lived with the disease for more than ten years.

The former caretaker lived with her husband, Sid, until his death in 1987 and then moved in with her daughter and son-in-law when she started to notice she could not remember well-known recipes and other information like what day it was and who the Prime Minister was at the time.

Ms Johnstone said she also remembered her grandma being confused when she made broccoli for Sunday dinner but boiled the stem instead of the florets.

“It started to affect my grandma in the late 80s and early 90s with things like making the Sunday dinner - things she had always been able to do she could not do,” Ms Johnstone said. “It was a really horrible decline.”

Mrs Bell, of Darlington, passed away in her sleep in 2003, aged 79.

As one of ten children; four of her siblings also lived with the disease.

Ms Johnstone, who is a mum-of-two, said she hoped to raise £400 for the charity so other families would not have to go through the same difficulties.

“Alzheimer’s Research UK is the major researcher into dementia in the UK and I think it’s got to be about the research into how to slow it down and control it because it’s such a hard thing to live with,” the 48-year-old added.

“For my grandma towards the end it was really tragic and really awful because she was not the person we had known and loved; she was a different person, a shell.”

Talking about the run she added: “I’m looking forward to it and I think it will be emotional as well because I’m doing it for my grandma.”

To sponsor Ms Johnstone visit justgiving.com/fundraising/ljjohnstone