Friends and family of the late Olympic sailor Reid Kempe will be running the Appleby Bermuda Half-Marathon Derby on Tuesday to raise funds for cancer charity Pals.

Mr Kempe died last August after a six-month battle with cancer and his daughter said the charity had been invaluable to her family. She has gathered a group of about ten friends to run on Bermuda Day and they will be wearing special T-shirts saying “Team Reid” and “Running for Reid”.

Ms Kempe told The Royal Gazette: “I am running with a bunch of friends who either knew my dad and want to run in his memory or who really want to support a charity such as Pals.

“Some of them have already had experience with Pals through friends or family members touched by cancer.

“‘Kempe corner’ between Keith Hall Road and Morgan Road is a stretch where a lot of Kempes live. That will be a little pick-me-up for Team Reid team members. You will find a lot of fans there.”

Asked how Pals helped her family through her father’s illness, Ms Kempe said: “I don’t know how we would have managed it without them.

“You don’t realise this charity exists and how important it is until you are faced with fighting something like cancer. The support they provide, the supplies that you need that you don’t even know that you need until it is necessary, is invaluable. They are one of those charities that are a little more behind the scenes that are not in the forefront of everybody’s mind until you are faced with what my family had to deal with last year.

“It also brought my dad a lot of peace knowing that there was a nurse on call if needed and that there were supplies to help deal with certain medical situations. It gave my dad a lot of peace of mind which gave us peace of mind.”

The half-marathon holds a special place in Ms Kempe’s heart as her father was an avid runner and he loved running on Bermuda Day.

“I am excited to do this in memory of daddy. I have been wanting to run this race for a long time — daddy ran it many times and so has my mom. They used to run it together. He was a big runner, so it is nice to be running a race that he really loved.

“I am grateful that so many people have come forward to say, ‘I will run for Reid’, and it is really nice to keep my dad’s memory alive.”

• Anyone who wishes to donate to Team Reid or to Pals in general can do so by visiting the website www.pals.bm. There is a drop-down menu on the donations page that allows the donor to enter the name of the team they are supporting