I adore running. The feeling that you’re skimming over the ground, lungs burning, heart galloping, mind clear, endorphin high building – it all puts a massive grin on my face, and always has.

I also have two permanently slipped discs in my lower back (L4/5 and L5/S1), which don’t get along well with impact. Like, say, running.

I don’t know when my back was injured, but I do know that the discs are completely scarred over, which means they can’t be reabsorbed neatly into my spine. Slipped discs (or herniated/prolapsed discs) can press on your nerves, causing myriad problems including downward shooting pain and numbness.

In 2021, slowly but steadily my lower back pain started building, my mobility diminished, I paused all weighted and impact exercise, and then stopped exercising altogether. Ten months of chronic pain followed, during which sitting became excruciating – car journeys, working, meals, everything was done either standing up or lying flat. Low points featured two trips to A&E, complete loss of control over the toes on my left foot, struggling to sleep through every movement hurting (and learning that the spine really is central to everything you do), pain medication cocktails that didn’t scratch the surface and came with a dense fog of drowsiness, and the deep-seated sadness at the possibility of symptoms being permanent.

There was a liberal sprinkling of sobbing and despair, during the darker intervals. It fills me with a quiet sense of wonder that with the help of specialists, physios, friends, family, colleagues (and joy-inducing levity intervals from my cats), not only can I run again, but my back can happily (and carefully, of course) deal with 18km. When I signed up for the Half Marathon, I did so with near-certainty that it was a nice thought, but almost impossible in practical terms – I was going on 15-minute run-walks, which featured a grand total of 90 seconds of running, in three separate intervals. A colossal thank you to the teams at Dynamic Health Cambridge, Nuffield Health Cambridge and Addenbrookes who’ve made a half marathon realistic. An ever bigger thank you to the people who kept me going in the dark – you know who you are and how grateful I am.

Chronic pain is exhausting and debilitating. It can rob you of coping mechanisms and the little daily things that make you happy (going for a walk, exercising, mundane things like being able to sit). Others often can’t see it, and they can’t carry it for you for a little bit while you rest. Recovery, in those for whom it’s possible, is mental just as much as physical, and takes so much patience, time, consistency, energy. Pain UK is an alliance of pain-related charities, including for backs and necks, arthritis and IBS, all of which are of particular importance to me, and plenty of others that help people manage their forms of pain, chronic or acute, through the day to day practicalities of what it means for them. Full list of member charities here: https://painuk.org/members/charities/

Donations will be split by Pain UK across all of these member charities, and any support would be greatly appreciated <3.