It feels right to update this. A lot of time has passed and lots of changes for everyone but what is still in my life dream is the London marathon. 

As part of this I am doing a triple crazy race schedule. Due to Covid, the GNR, London Marathon and Yorkshire Marathon have all been moved to be within the space of 5 weeks

- 12th September GNR (Half marathon)

- 3rd October London Marathon

- 17th October Yorkshire Marathon

So with this in mind it would mean a lot if I could raise some more money for SENSE!!

Here is my original story from back in 2019 when I first started raising money for SENSE, with my reasons below;

Before I bore you with my story I would like you to know why I am running London Marathon 2020 for SENSE. I thought about all the things that really mean something to me. Mental health, children, domestic abuse, cancer, support, help and somewhere to be listened to. The first year I ran GNR I raised money for ‘Children with cancer’ so I really wanted to support another cause. I thought about what my teaching career was about, what becoming a counsellor means to me and then I realised how strongly I feel that everyone should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential no matter who they are.
SENSE does exactly that. They believe that ‘life’s better when we are all
connected’. SENSE works hard to help deafblind people to feel like they belong, not to feel isolated because of their disability. I can’t imagine how daunting it must be as a parent to have a child born with serious problems with sight or hearing. Sense is an amazing charity offering children and their families support through their centres, holidays and short breaks, or even in people’s own homes and the only reason they can do all this is from the support of you, me and all of us!!

If you want to read my story then here it is…..

5 years ago I woke up and decided enough is enough and I wanted to get fit. I hated me, I hated my body and my head was a mess!! I went power walking with my youngest, Lucy, in the pushchair and started counting my steps. I got obsessed and wanted to do at least 20,000 steps a day.
It got ridiculous, spending all my time thinking about and going about getting them. It was hard doing it with a 9 month old baby and Lucy didn’t like being in a pushchair…..so my husband, Stew, bought me a treadmill on ebay for 30 quid!!
I felt my only way to fulfil this obsession was to do all these steps by walking on the treadmill when Lucy was asleep in her cot. I look back and think how crazy I was!!

One day I laughed to myself and turned the speed up on the treadmill. If I can stay upright and run a bit, I can do the steps quicker and I could probably do even more. I thought….no one needs to see my body wobbling and laugh at me, no one needs to know about this and if I’m rubbish then I can just stop….so using the NHS C25k on the treadmill off I went!!

This was the day my running adventure started.

In the last 4 years I found the courage to leave the treadmill behind and run outside. I joined the amazingly supportive Easingwold Running Club and have now completed many races. I have a love hate relationship with them…The nerves are immense but the feeling at the end equals that intensity!!

I’ve so far clocked up 25 x 10ks, 7 x 10mile, 6 x half marathons and 2 marathons… and those who know how I love spreadsheets won’t find it difficult to believe that I have a spreadsheet to prove it!!

So why London….

My lovely, mad, 74 year old Dad is running his 25^th London Marathon next year…yes 25^th!!

As a child I have watched him start his own journey with running. I used to think he was mad. I used to worry about him going off to do these races and I used to wonder why he wanted to put himself through them. I mean, if you saw how knackered he looked afterwards you would think the same if you were a child!! …..I now know why!!

I’m in awe of him. Like WOW…his 25^th London Marathon….I want to be with him when he does this. Yorkshire Marathon was almost like a test run to see if I could actually do it and I was like ‘blimey Liz you can actually run one’

So here I am asking for help to get there. I’m more daunted about raising the money than running the race. I have a training plan for that but for this bit I am relying solely on all you lovely people.

I feel proud to help SENSE and fortunate to have the opportunity to do London Marathon with my Dad.