My Journey towards the finishing line!!

I was always the last to be picked for the team in PE at school – the geeky one who couldn’t run, hit a rounders ball, catch a frisby or even dance!!   (Saving grace, I was awesome at maths and makeup!!!!)

Oddly enough, I could throw a javelin like a warrior!!!!  I was a 12-year-old with biceps like Popeye!!! 

And I carried on through life in much the same way --- small, but with super-human-inner-strength when it came to lifting boxes or changing tyres on tractors!!! 

Last year I had a milestone birthday -- (don’t even think about asking, because I will never ever EVER tell you which one) and I decided that I didn’t want to grow old gracefully!  I wanted to become the girl I had always dreamed I could be, to be fit at last, to be able to run for more than 30 seconds without keeling over.  

My friend Tracey had encouraged me to run with her at her Saturday morning Parkruns in St Albans.   There I gained a reputation as “that crazy ginger-haired woman who sings all the way around”, something I am quite proud to own!!     But it did show just how slowly I was running, to be able to sing Adele and Meatloaf and Blondie at the top of my voice whilst plodding around Verulamium lakes.   Those sessions always ended with the best hot-chocolate and cake sessions in the café (or hot apple and a banana for Vegan-me).  Absolutely wonderful. 

I have since managed to participate in 5/10/15km races, half marathons (13miles), a walking ultra-marathon (28miles - took me 10 hours – had an absolute blast), an all-day stampede and topped it all with 2 triathlons.

The triathlons where a huge challenge for my brain, overcoming my fear of swimming in a bottomless lake amongst a herd of “ginger-hair-girl”-killing mad-men.  The cycling and running afterwards seemed a breeze in comparison.  Unsurprisingly, I came second to last, in both triathlons, but the most important thing was --- I DID IT!!!   I GOT OUT THERE AND DID SOMETHING AWESOME!!

A few weeks ago, Paddy Storrie launched the Big Curry Run in our afternoon Chapel service, and explained about the work that each Charity does  ----- and I cried.

He focused on the work that The Soldiers’ Charity do with ex-service people, specifically those dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  He told us about the hundreds of people who came home from war, and took their own lives.  In my mind’s eye, all I could see was my 20-year-old son, a beautiful, strapping great strong man-child, defending his country, coming home so broken that he wanted to die. 

How could we ever let that happen, that a person so strong and full of life, with all of their future ahead of them, should feel so alone and desperate that death seems the better deal?

And Humanitas, that wonderful charity trying to ensure that every child in the world has the right to health-care, an education and a family.   Looking around the chapel, all I could see were hundreds of children, each with an education, each receiving the best care that we can possibly give them, each having the love of a family.      

And it broke my heart, thinking that there are any children out there without that, who live alone, who are hungry, ill or terrified.

So, on the 29^th April, I am running 15km for those forgotten boys and girls (they could have been my child, they could have been yours) who come home from war and take their own lives.  I run to raise money for the emotional support they need to help them through that despair, through their own nightmare, and to help them back into the light. 

I run to save a life.

I run for all those little children, with their curly hair and their bright eyes and big smiles, who live in hell, who starve, who fear for their safety, who have never known family love, or the square root of pi.   I run to give them hope.

I wish I could save them all.  I can’t.

But I pray that my contribution could save someone, even if just one someone.

So come and run with me.  Maybe walk 5km with your children?  Bring your dog?  Donate to the charities via the many people setting up their “just giving” pages. 

But do something. Anything. 

Make a difference. 
Save someone’s life.  <3