My big personal challenge for 2015

In 2013, I challenged myself to run the 5k Race For Life, whilst I was battling Cancer. At the time, I hadn’t ran in about ten years. I achieved my run, in forty degree sunshine, in 42 minutes and felt very pleased with that. I also raised over £1300 for Cancer Research UK.

In 2014, I challenged myself to walk 104 miles cross country (mostly up and down steep hills and rough terrain) in just ten consecutive days. I walked The Cotswold Way and I dragged a team of people with me, some doing ten miles and some doing all one hundred and four. Between us we raised over £3180 for Cancer Research UK. This was one of the toughest personal challenges I have ever undertaken. Just five weeks before the start, I’d had surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, so I ended up doing the challenge on very little training. It was gruelling, physically and mentally, there were highs and lows and the whole thing really pushed my body, mind and stamina to the limits.

But after each of those two personal challenges… the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling of having achieved something big and doing it for a good cause too… It was overwhelming. It made me fitter and stronger and it taught me that I can achieve anything I set my mind to.

So I need to challenge myself to do something this year too.

This year, I am going to take up running, and enter THREE races that will challenge me.

I am going to do the Blacklight Run in Cheltenham. This is a 5k course, with added UV paint and dance music.

I am going to do the Pretty Muddy Race for Life, which is like Race For Life, but with added mud and added obstacles, to make it more difficult.

And finally, as long as we reach the full 8 team members we are looking for, I am going to enter the Cotswold 24 hour Race. This is a relay run down a 9k track in Cirencester. Our team of 8 people, will have just 24 hours, to see how many laps of the course we can run between us. Only one of us can run at a time, so if you average out the times at being somewhere between and hour and an hour and a half per person, we will be looking at 2-3 laps each. So that’s either 18 or 27 kilometres of RUNNING in 24 hours. I would like to now point out, that with the exception of running through a meadow in the rain last year, I haven’t ran since the 2013 Race For Life. This, therefore, will be a BIG challenge for me. And not only do I want to run those laps, but I want to run them in decent times, so I don’t let my team down.

I’m not going to be asking for sponsorship for each individual event. I will just set up one page and anyone who sponsors me, will be sponsoring me for all three events. If anyone would like to join me at any of these events, do let me know! This is particularly aimed at you Mum of Three World seeing as you were a part of both my 2013 and 2014 personal challenges!

I have no illusions of raising as much money as I did the last two years, but don’t worry… I have an epic fundraiser up my sleeve to make sure I raise more money this year. I’ll tell you about that, another day! For now, I need to put faith back into myself and push myself to the limits again.

Let the training commence…