A MUM-OF-ONE will run the Race for Life for the first time in memory of her dad.

Claire Pavey, 32, will make her way around the 5km course of Kingston Maurward College on Sunday, May 22, to raise money for cancer causes.

Her dad Ian Pavey lost his battle with lung cancer in July last year aged 56.

Weymouth resident Claire, who works at Wilkinsons, will be running with her mum Christina Pavey and seven other family members.

She said: “Dad was a very well liked person who was outgoing and a lot of fun.

“He enjoyed his sport, especially his golf and he was a real family man.”

Claire, who is mum to two-year-old Jayden, has enlisted a Race for Life team of Valerie, Melissa and Abbey Temple, Nicki Olsen, Angela and Pauline Pavey and Debbie Bishop.

She said: “My auntie Valerie suggested that I run it and I didn’t think twice, I said ‘yes’ straight away.

“I’m going to have my dad’s picture on my back.

“I’ll be thinking about my dad and all the other people I know who have known someone with cancer.

“One of my friends, Joanne Needham lost her dad Greg Needham to lung cancer and he passed away in April.”

Claire said that her dad succumbed to cancer not long after he was diagnosed.

“It was too late for my dad by the time he was diagnosed.

“It was hard to get our head round it, he used to be a smoker but he had given up smoking 15 years previously.”

Ian, who worked for Westwind at Holton Heath, passed away at home in Weymouth surrounded by his family.

Claire is stepping up her fundraising effort for Cancer Research UK by asking people at work to sponsor her.

She can be sponsored at raceforlife sponsorme.org/clairepavey0308.