Got to Run Mum

It's early. Too early for a Saturday when you don't have work. Too early for a Saturday when you've been up frequently in the night seeing to your precious children. God, I love them both dearly but I so wish they'd learn to sleep...And definitely too early when you've spent all week sniffing and aching and coughing and spluttering with a silly cold that just won't quit. So what am I doing? Pulling on my trainers. Still wiping the sleep out of my eyes as I reach for my car keys, I have decided that today I must run. There's a park run at the local lakes. A timed 5k. It's the last thing I feel like doing but I must. I haven't trained all week and I know that I have a 10k race to run next weekend. So today I must run. Must. You see, I made a promise last year. When my daughter was ill. When I didn't know what the future held, or whether I'd get through it. I promised that once it was over, once it was a part of our past, I'd repay all t

Let’s start at the beginning, a very good place to start… actually to really go back, to relive it, to go back over each thought, each process, each heart-breaking moment; I want to go back to a day just a few days before the start. I was sat on our sofa, feet up, chocolates in hand, relishing this stage of pregnancy. Embracing the eating for two, counting down to our first scan. Wishing away the time. It was a week before Christmas, the best Christmas we were going to have. Our daughter was nearly two, we knew she’d love all the presents and we had planned plenty of Christmas activities to make it extra special. We’d planned a big Christmas party for our friends and family. It was just going to be perfect. The perfect Christmas and then the perfect start to what would be a perfect year. The year we would meet our second child. If only our daughter could shake off this really annoying tummy bug. It had been a couple of weeks now. Of seeming fine but then throwing up. She’d be happily