Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

As many of you know, I have experienced depression and anxiety in the past, right back to when I was a child; over the years I have worked out ways to help, from what I eat, mindfulness, talking, be it with family, friends or with professionals.Once I had children, I had to make sure I worked extra hard, it wasn’t just me anymore and at the same time becoming a mother added to the pressure of keeping on top of my depression and anxiety, especially in the early days, when it is easy to become isolated, to feel anxiety forming new friendships and all the other new things to overthink. I turned to my usual tools then a few years ago, I started to realise how much exercise helped too.

Now I see myself as a strong confident mother of my three gorgeous children, I have blips from time to time but that’s life and I'm happy, I have been well for years now but up until a few years ago  I was still finding winter a bit of a struggle feeling down with symptoms of SAD. Just under two years ago I decided I was going to get back into a love of my youth and start running, I started in the summer and continued, as the winter went on I realised I hadn’t experienced any SAD symptoms and even better I could honestly say I felt happy even in cold dark January.

One other thing had changed that year was I had trained to become a Home Visiting Volunteer for Home-Start Crawley, Horsham and Mid-Sussex. Home-Start offer families struggling with post-natal depression, isolation, physical health problems, bereavement and many other issues receive the support of a volunteer who will spend around two hours a week in a family’s home supporting them in the ways they need. For more information visit  http://homestartchams.org.uk/
I have loved getting to know the families I have worked with so far and the progress they have made has been so rewarding to be part of.

So many people deal with mental health issues and for a long time I have been a big advocate of breaking the stigma of mental health. During the summer, I was injured and unable to run, not only was this frustrating for me, (thank you family and friends for putting up with me) but I became a little anxious at the thought of a winter with no running and possible return of SAD symptoms. Gradually I got going again and spent the autumn getting my fitness levels up. In November I turned 40 and decided to sign myself up for my first ½ marathon in the spring.  I would have no excuse
not to keep running throughout the winter. I worked out a training plan and have been running four times a week since, as I was looking at my plan I decided to add an extra race in as part of my training, I then spotted a couple of other races and set out on a mission to ‘Spring into Spring’ with a series of races, one a month finishing in May. Hopefully I will stay injury free and complete them all. I thought it would be a good opportunity to raise money for Home-Start CHAMS at the same time. I’m not asking for sponsorship for each race but if you can please to sponsor me collectively I would be very grateful and you would be helping local families. I was lucky enough to have good connections and the love and support of my friends and family when I have struggled not everyone has or just needs some more.

The races I have entered are:

January-

just to get a bit of race practice I went along to my local Parkrun getting a 5k PB of 23:20 I may well do a few more Parkruns as part of my training.

February 25^th-
Maverick Original Sussex 13km Trail Run, Amberly, South Downs National Park.

 http://www.maverick-race.com/races/theoriginalsussex2017

March 19^th-
Spring Surrey Badger Half Marathon, Trail run starting and finishing at Denbies Vinyard, Dorking. Please don’t ask me why I have picked a hilly half for myfirst go at this distance. http://eventstolive.co.uk/products/surrey-badger-half-marathon

April 9^th-We are visiting Granny and Grandad and I just happened to spot The Great Ireland Run is on in The Phoenix Park in Dublin and no hills!! http://www.greatrun.org/great-ireland-run

May 13^th-Maverick Original Surrey 8km Trail Run, I ran this last year so hoping to improve on my time, last year was very hot and hilly. http://www.maverick-race.com/races/theoriginalsurrey2017

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