A MOTHER and daughter team are to run 5km for the third successive year in memory of a relative.

Joyce Forster, 46, and Ashley Gent, 18, have taken part in Cancer Research UK's Race for Life, in Darlington, for the past two years.

Their first race was in 2003, less than two months after Mrs Forster's mother, and Miss Gent's grandmother, Pam Chapman, died from a brain tumour, aged 66.

At the time, the thought of running 5km around Darlington's South Park was a daunting prospect for Mrs Forster.

But she used her grief and the memory of her mother to help her around the course in Darlington's South Park, and ever since has been addicted to running.

She took part in the Great North Run last September.

She said: "I do have my mum to thank for this. We said we would do the Race for Life every year to raise money in her memory."

The pair, who live in Westfield Drive, Darlington, are just two of more than 17,000 women across the North-East and North Yorkshire who have already signed up to take part in one of eight Race for Life events in this region this summer.

To find out more and to get involved, log on to racefor life.org