EVESHAM'S third Race for Life event on June 19 is set to be the town's biggest and most successful to date.

Organisers have already increased the capacity for this year's Crown Meadow race from 1,500 to 1,700 entrants, ensuring everyone has the chance to take part. More than 300 people have already signed up and fund-raisers are hoping sponsorship money will top the £77,000 raised last year.

The all-female event encourages women of every age and ability to take part and raise vital funds for Cancer Research UK. It is the world's largest independent cancer charity and organisers aim to raise £24m through this year's 162 Race for Life events.

Judy Knight, of Leicester Grove, Evesham, is just one of the inspirational women to already sign up for this year's race. She took part for the first time last year to celebrate her own recovery from cancer, which almost crippled her. Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the grandmother of nine had pins inserted in her vertebra.

Mrs Knight said: "I'm still a bit slow but I can get about which is the main thing - I shan't be running the race, but I certainly won't be the last. Until I was down on the meadow last year I honestly didn't realise how many people are affected by cancer. I think everyone is touched in one way or another and money for research is desperately needed.

"If I had not had my scan when I did I wouldn't have been diagnosed quite so early because an X-ray wouldn't have shown the cancer. Every day some new discovery comes along to help and that is why events like Race for Life are so important."

More than 300 people are diagnosed with cancer in England every day and one in three people in the UK are expected to develop cancer at some point in their lives. Cancer is the single biggest killer in this country, accounting for the deaths of 155,000 people each year.

But things are improving, thanks to medical research. Survival rates for nearly all cancers have increased, with death rates decreasing by 11 per cent in the last decade. More than 70 per cent of children now survive cancer and more than nine out of 10 men diagnosed with prostate cancer will live.

To register for this year's Race for Life visit www.raceforlife.org or call 08705 134314 between 8.30am to 8.30pm.

Application forms are also available from the Journal's High Street office.

The Journal would like to hear from anyone who has a special reason for entering this year's Race for Life.