After a recent period of poor mental health, due to some pretty debilitating perimenopause symptoms, and feeling that I couldn't actually do anything extraordinary anymore, I decided that I needed a challenge!

The Ultra Challenge Series of events always put on a few 100km walks throughout the summer, so I thought I'd sign up & get one done.

Excited to feel like I could challenge myself one more, I loaded up the events page for 2023, and browsed the events, wondering how I'd decide which one to do.

In what can only be described as an extreme moment of 'WTF' 😳, I decided to sign up for all 15 events 🙈

Two 25km walks, 1 Marathon, 4 continuous 50km walks, and 8 continuous 100km walks!

That oughta get me out of this slump I thought to myself 🤣

Then I thought, why suffer for nothing? Why not let other people get the benefit of my blood, sweat, tears and blisters?

And so I've decided to raise money for two charities that mean a lot to me, and hopefully bring some awareness to how perimenopause can affect our mental health.

The first, for obvious reasons, is Mind, the mental health charity. Having been lucky enough to get access to NHS mental health resources when I needed them, I know that in the current climate this isn't always possible, so the work that Mind does is more important than ever right now.

The second is a community project run by my friend Kristen Ingraham Morgan, the owner of LN CrossFit, and founder of the Strong Girl Squad, based in Lincoln.

The Strong Girl Squad is a group of female strength and conditioning coaches who saw there was a need for girls to be given access to strength training equipment and instruction in a safe and encouraging environment.

Their girls-only weightlifting workshops teach girls in years 7 to 12 that weightlifting is safe and fun, and that being strong is cool!

I found weightlifting later on in life, and came to it after trying a whole host of unhelpful coping mechanisms to distract myself from my problems, including various addictions, spells in hospital, and lots of other 'risk taking behaviours'.

Many of these were rooted in my teens, and steadily got worse into adulthood. Weightlifting, and specifically CrossFit definitely helped get me off a path of self destructiveness and showed me how to be proud of myself once more.

If I'd had access to a project like the Strong Girl Squad when I was a teenager, I imagine my life would've looked a lot different.

And that is why I'm super passionate about showing girls that lifting weights is cool!

I know Kristen has big plans for the project, and I hope that I can help her make them happen by raising some money.

Any money raised will be split equally between both charities.

I'll post regular training updates here and also on my Instagram and Facebook page.

Thanks for reading!