THE deadline for registration for this year’s Lloyds Bank Cardiff Half Marathon is fast approaching. As the Ambassador for Barnardo’s Cymru I am urging runners to join us for Wales’s largest running event in 2015.

This year's event takes place on Sunday, October 4, with over 20,000 runners are expected to be pounding the streets of Cardiff.

The Lloyds Bank Cardiff Half Marathon’s official charity partner is Barnardo's, the nation’s leading children’s charity that ‘helps the most vulnerable children turn their lives around’. We need your support now more than ever to deliver our services to help children and young people who are abused, vulnerable, disabled, neglected or living in poverty. We will support them, stand up for them and bring out the best in each and every child. Services like the Barnardo’s SERAF project ensure that we get this work done.

Seraf is the only child sexual exploitation support project of its kind in Wales. Last year we supported 76 children in Wales to recover from their traumatic experiences and the control of abusive adults. By joining #TeamBarnardos you’re becoming a part of something great, you will have an individual impact on the life of a child that has been sexually exploited and you’ll be helping us prevent it from ever happening again. This is some of the toughest work we do; it requires resilient and specialist project workers to help children rebuild their lives, and for that we need you.

Please register now and help raise money for Barnardo’s. Barnardo’s Runners will receive a personalised running vest, specialist training advice, an invitation to a post-race reception with a free massage. The only way to register for a place in the race is to run through Barnardo’s

For more information and to register for the 2015 event visit barnardos.org.uk/CardiffHalf. Remember that you can join the team on Facebook to talk to other runners and get the latest updates or you can follow the event build up on Twitter.

I’ll be there, and I hope you can be too.

Jamie Baulch

Ambassador for Barnardo’s Cymru