It's taken me a while (in fact, an embarrassingly long while) to get back to this page and give my generous sponsors an update. But better late than never, as they say, and I'm confident my dear friends and family will appreciate my intentions inspite of the delayed execution! Thank you so much to all of you who sponsored my run - you are all stars and I had every one of you in my thoughts when I ran! So many times when I felt demotivated during training, the fact that you all had shown faith in me spurred me on.

So here's how it all happened. I did the 10k Race for Life at Blackheath on Sunday, 3rd July. It was kind of a mixed bag of experiences for me. The days leading up to the Sunday were very stressful as Malcolm's health was particularly poor and I missed some training I had planned. It also became apparent that Malcolm could not look after Seth while I did the race or even come to Blackheath to support me on Sunday. After much panic and frantic phoning of friends, I managed to make arrangements for Seth to be at my my friend Sue's house while I did the race. Sue is very pregnant and also the mother of a 2 year old, so I'm very grateful for the favour! (She did say after having Seth for a few hours that she was very, very glad she did not have twin children!)  

By the time I got to Falconwood station to get the train to Blackheath, I was already exhausted, with the running around of the morning, with Malcolm in bed, Seth very challenging and then the run to Sue's house and back. I did question whether I would even make 5 k, let alone 10!! But once I met up with Cheryl and Maria, my running gang, it was all sunshine and ambition from then on. Cheryl has an indomitable spirit and Maria is an eternal optimist. (During training, they both infuriated me continuously with their inaccurate and exaggerated assessments of our running prowess, but on that Sunday, their blind optimism was just what I needed.)

Blackheath station was like a carnival! Hundreds of women in pink and so many weird and wonderful costumes. I was impressed and inspired by the lengths the girls had gone to to dress up for the event - face paint, tutus, stockings, elaborate headdresses, fairy wings, etc. Cheryl, Maria and I felt quite under-dressed by comparison, with our token commitment to the pink theme. But the spirit of the crowd was infectious and we were caught up in it. At the venue, they had a stage and a presenter was trying (rather poorly, I have to say) to raise a few laughs and cheers. Fortunately, he went away after a while and they brought on a fitness instructor to do some warm up exercises. It was awesome to do a mass warm up at Blackheath Common with strangely dressed women and it was the most vigorous warm up I have ever experienced!

Next, they had videos of true cancer loss/survival stories. They even brought on a little girl on stage who had survived cancer. Cheryl's grandad had died just a few days ago of cancer and she had been through an emotional roller coaster the previous few days; I was already feeling acutely for her and her family. By the end of the presentation, we were all crying away, shamelessly. I remember praying. I felt privileged to be part of such an event.

(The only thing that marred the perfectly inspired and excited experience for me was that we were asked to cheer Tesco, the sponsors of the event. Oh dear.)

I remember the lining up at the start, minutes before the race began. I felt so nervous, there were strange tumblings in the pit of my stomach! But it was so amazing to be amongst such a committed and inspired group of people. We exchanged some fun stories with the people around us, and that calmed my nerves a little. (I think Cheryl was nervous too but she just hid it better than me! Maria - now she's a cool cucumber!)

Anyway, once we got running, the atmosphere and the excitement just kept us going, inspite of the blazing heat. It was a little annoying that they had just doubled up the 5k lap from the morning, as that meant we had to repeat the whole lap, which really saps your motivation at the end of 5k! I completed 5k at an uninterrupted run and achieved it in 32 minutes, which I'm very proud of. After that I slowed down as I wanted to share the course with Cheryl, not attempt a personal best time. We did a very respectable 1 hour 20 minutes for the whole 10k, part walking, part jogging. Maria went full steam and did the entire 10k running and did a fantastic 1 hour 3 minutes (I think). We're very proud of Maria!

At the end, I remember feeling very, very sad as I saw so many fathers with their children hoisted on their shoulders, cheering their wives/mothers through the last leg. I missed Malcolm and Seth so much I could have cried (I did a little, secretly). But never mind, there will be other races when Malcolm's health will be better and he will no doubt be there, with Seth, cheering me on to the finish line. Hope and optimism - that's what this experinece has taught me. If a little girl can fight something as big as cancer, we can fight ME as a family.

So once again, thank you to all my wonderful sponsors. And well done to me, Cheryl and Maria, the awesome yummy-mummy running club from Welling!

(2 photos added from the day)