Between April 2024 and April 2025, I am embarking on my biggest running challenge ever and I need all the support I can possibly get!!

As I have explored the world of health and fitness over the years, running has always been the one thing I have come back to and will always be the form of movement that makes me feel alive, empowered and free. Running has taught me so much about myself and has transformed my mental health in ways I cannot put into words.

However, as I began my career within the humanitarian sector in 2022, I began to recognise the privilege I hold in putting on my running shoes and stepping outside my door as for so many around the world this is literally impossible. During a volunteer placement in a refugee community space in Greece, I first hand saw the positive impact movement and fitness can have on overcoming trauma, strengthening community resilience and building self-confidence. During this time, as I ran alongside refugees of all ages and life experiences I fell in love with the work, and it has been on my mind ever since.

So, after completing my first half marathon and marathon in 2023 and second marathon in March 2024, I have decided I want to completely push myself out of my comfort zone and try something I never thought I would be capable of. For the next year of my life, I have decided to set some crazy goals with the mission of improving the lives of those living within humanitarian crisis around the world and particularly the lives of women and young girls.

Free to Run is a charity I have followed and admired for a very long time now and whenever I talk to my friends and family about them, they all agree they have never heard of a charity more suited to my passions and goals. Free to Run’s mission is to advance gender equity globally through running and to support girls and young women in conflict areas. They do this by providing leadership and wellbeing programs, in conjunction with running experiences, for adolescent girls and young women in conflict areas like Iraq and Afghanistan. Free to Run participants are typically refugees, internally displaced people, and those who identify as ethnic minorities.

I am so excited to be fundraising for this charity and embark on this crazy journey, so here’s the plan:

Over the next 12 months (until April 15th, 2025) I will be aiming to run 2500 km (hopefully a bit more), both through racing and training and will be taking part in the following distance-based races:

1. Half marathon (Dundee Half Marathon 2024)

2. Full marathon (The Meadows Marathon 2025)

3. 50-mile ultra marathon (Ultra Scotland 50 June 2024)

4. 100-mile ultra marathon (to be confirmed but early 2025).

As I am eight weeks away from my first ultra marathon, I am doing it a little bit all over the place, but the main goal is getting all the above done and ticked off by April 15th, 2025 :0 I still have to take a step back from time to time and think about how far I have come and that I believe something like this is even possible. As I embarked on my couch to 5km journey in 2019 after not being able to run from one lamppost to the other I had no idea this is where it would take me!!

This journey is going to be hard and going to take up so much of my life both physically and mentally however, I hold a massive privilege living where I do and being able to step outside my door or go to sleep at night without the fear of not making it through the night. Running has brought me so much joy to life and I believe it is only fair other girls and young women get to experience the same.

LETS GOOOOO!!!!