The past year has been extremely difficult for all of us and if we are lucky, we’ve spent that time developing coping mechanisms to deal with the boredom and fatigue of lockdown. I am a ‘COVID-19’ runner and have dived headlong into maintaining my sourdough starter (affectionately named ‘The Yeasty Boy’ by my children) and baking a lot of bread!

Running has helped me to keep sane and given me an excuse to go out. Thanks to my running club at work, I dragged myself out every Thursday for a 5km run and with the help of my running partner, I have also started long weekend runs. All of this has been building up to my first half marathon, which started as a personal goal and a way to celebrate the end of the toughest part of lockdown on March 29🎉

Lately, I have been thinking about turning this personal goal into something more meaningful, as not everyone has been as lucky as we have.  I have set up a fundraising page to support Place2Be UK’s leading provider of school based children’s mental health. During lockdown they worked hard to provide support to children and families who need them most. With so much uncertainty in the world, children and young people need emotional support now more than ever... this is why I decided to run my half marathon for mental health.