Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I’ve set up this Just Giving profile to raise money for INARA - the increase of war, suffering and refugees in this world has weighed very heavily on my heart. 

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About INARA

Whatever actions adults choose kids are powerless. There are millions of children who are caught up in war and in terrifying situations where there is no medical help.

This is where INARA steps in. This charity does AMAZING, LIFE-SAVING work and was set up by Arwa Damon, CNN's Senior International correspondent based in Istanbul, Turkey.

INARA helps children who have catastrophic injuries or illnesses and are unable to access treatment due to war.

www.inara.org

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UPDATE FEBRUARY 2020

My running is going well! Following a running training camp and some good long runs, I'm feeling ready to build up to the feat that is 50k/4,200m+ in the Alps in August.

I was asked to write about my illness and my running journey which will be out soon in the fabulous Fit & Well magazine, and I am also now an Ambassador for the RUN1,000MILES group that the UK's Trail Running magazine founded. INARA are planning to include me and my fundraising efforts on their sporting pages too, which is just such an honour - they blow me aware with the depth of their caring and support to so many powerless kids. 

These are my race goals for 2020 (I may add one or two as we go along):

1. March 2020 - Ceven Trail - 23k + 1,000m elevation gain

2. July 2020 - Aneto Trail (Pyrenees) - 21k + 1,300m elevation gain

3. August 2020 - Trail de Meribel (Alps) - 50k + 4,000m elevation gain 

Thanks again for all your support and I know that INARA is so grateful too.

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UPDATE OCTOBER 2019

In January I couldn't run around the block and I pledged here that I would train and run my first 10k in the Pyrenees (the Aneto Trail with 500 metres elevation gain) in July 2019 and my first marathon in September 2019.

I am so excited and happy to have achieved both of these goals. Woohoo! It just shows you that when you set your mind to it you can achieve anything because if I can do it honestly anyone can!!

Now I have set my mind on completing my first ultra marathon in August 2020 with "training run" races on the lead up.

These are my race goals for 2020:

1. March 2020 - Ceven Trail - 23k + 1,000m elevation gain

2. July 2020 - Aneto Trail (Pyrenees) - 21k + 1,300m elevation gain

3. August 2020 - Trail de Meribel (Alps) - 50k + 4,000m elevation gain (particularly nervous about this one)

** I don't know if I can physically achieve this, but there is only one way to find out! **

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ORIGINAL JUST GIVING PAGE MESSAGE

I also want to raise awareness for the chronic illness that I fight each day and which totally changed my life: Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria (CIU).

On 7^th July 2019 I will run my first ever trail race, the Aneto Trail. A 10k mountain course with 550 metres of elevation gain in the Pyrénées.

On 28th Septemer 2019 I am planning on running my first marathon in Millau.

My overall, long-term running plan is to increase the length and difficulty of races each year, starting with this 10k and then build up the distance and elevation to eventually achieve the 171km UTMB ultra marathon race in the Alps in seven years’ time.

This is the year I will be 50.

I think it would be a good present to myself to be the fittest I've ever been at this stage of my life – and that would also hopefully be an impactful amount of money raised for charity in the meantime!

I haven’t had physical goals before. These are big, practically impossible ones for me, I’m aware of that. 

Maybe I won’t make it, but long-term goals are a good motivator for me to run and train, so I am announcing them to the world to get them out there.

That way they are a real target I am accountable for.

Why do I run and why the ridiculous goals?

I started running last year after falling ill with Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria. 

Six months before I had seen the Aneto Trail runners for the first time in Luchon, in the Pyrénées. I didn’t know what they were doing – they had poles and little backpacks (I’d only really seen road runners before). I felt drawn to what they were doing and so I learned about trail running and mountain running, and felt so inspired. I wanted to do it too, but how? 

I ran quite a lot in my twenties - nothing official, of course, and I've usually kept myself fairly active. 

But at this point in my life last year I had become really unfit (plus I couldn't run after having the kids as the impact hurt the base of my spine too much after the births).

Anyway, I didn't have much time outside of work and kids, so I put the interest in the Aneto Trail on hold.

Having three kids in five years really took its toll, as amazing as it is and as they are (they and hubby are definitely the best things that have ever happened to me), I guess I lost myself.

Then I got sick.

I never thought I would get ill before with a disease that didn’t have a cure. (Other people have far worse, I have nothing compared to so many others - this is a process I went through though - at first I was in shock.)

It was during last August that things started to go badly wrong.

I thought I had developed terrible sunburn as we had done lots of summer holiday day trips out with the kids, but it got worse instead of better. 

It didn't go away. Quite a while after I was diagnosed with chronic idiopathic urticaria or chronic hives (chronic is when it lasts more than six weeks). 

It manifests itself differently in people, but with me my skin goes red and looks as though a tiger has slashed it with its claws.

It spreads and gets stronger and more painful, burning my skin until I can’t tolerate being in my skin any more.

That’s a scary feeling!

Thankfully I discovered that taking antihistamines brings relief, but I need a lot of them, a least four or five times the standard dose - even then if I live my life "normally" it's not enough.

I was put on cocktails of different types for the first five months, and
reacted badly to the type the doctors said I should take. 

I became very drowsy, anxious, gained a lot of weight and felt incredibly depressed, and spent many months believing that my life as I knew it was over.

I wasn’t being the mum, wife or friend I wanted to
be – far from it. I was also frightened the urticaria was a symptom of
something more serious, like cancer, and spent those months in complete fear as well.

I honestly thought I was dying. And as dramatic as it may seem, I remember feeling that I wasn’t ready to die. I felt like I was
still waiting to become the person I always wanted to be. 

I thought about what I had been waiting for. Well, for the kids to get older for a start, for there to be a more obvious shift in
daily life so I could fit in self-care and time for me.

I had also been waiting for an improvement in my work opportunities so that I could actually experience progression, maybe even have a career. But this doesn’t magically happen.

Waiting wasn’t the answer. 

Don't wait - do want you want to do in your life now. Start today!

Ironically, fighting this disease just to be well again, has actually forced me to do all of that and carve out the time I need for myself.

To cut a long story short, at the start of this year I found a new brand of antihistamines which didn’t affect me psychologically, the weight gain was less, and I no longer felt drowsy.

It was life changing.

After one set of the hundreds of blood tests I had came back, I
discovered that while I wasn’t officially allergic, cutting dairy out of my
diet reduced the burning problem on my skin.

Other important changes too (I won’t bore you any more!) mean I found the energy to run and I fell in love with trail running, especially in the mountains.

Running saved my life.

It is also the equivalent of about one antihistamine a day for me, so it helps me reduce the medication I need.

I feel free in the mountains - it is my therapy and my meditation.

At first I couldn’t even run the 2.7k loop by my house. Now I’m ready for a 10k mountain race, and this is just the start. 

This will be a dream come true, but I am scared, I've never been in a race before - but I'm amazed by how much your body and mind can change in a few months.

It is all about mindset.

I still live with this disease every day, it might last for as long as I am alive.

My plan now is to raise awareness of Chronic Urticaria (there are 10,000 of us in the Facebook group) and funds for the charities I care about.

If you got this far, thank you!

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THANK YOU AND HOW TO DONATE

Thank you for being on this journey with me, for your support and if you hear of anyone with similar symptoms please let them know about my story (tell them to contact me directly if you like and I can put them in the right direction!)

It could save them months of stress and pain, and enable them to get a faster diagnosis.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails.

Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.