One activity that really gave me a big of a wake up call was the dreaded Race for Life. One of the young people wanted to complete a Race for Life in order to raise money in memory of her Nan. She lived with her Nan for a considerable period of time before coming into care and she had lost her Nan a few years prior. For her, this was a really important part of the grieving process, and she was so proud. I said to her that I would take her to the event even though I wasn’t on shift that day and I would cheer her on.
Now this is where the errors started. Turns out, when they are running the Race for Life for Kids, an adult has to run with them… error. So, I had basically signed myself up to run a 5k without really realising it. I started the 5k off with her, and I was already realising that this was going to be a terrible idea. To my luck and good fortune, I had also dragged Jordan and the dog (Archie) along to the event and Jordan took over the running however, it made me quite sad that I wasn’t able to run it with her as it was such a big thing for her to do.
Honestly, it made me regret the way that I have let my fitness go but in all of that, it gave me a little bit of a kick in the arse to sort myself out. Now, I didn’t start immediately but I did start to think about what I could do and for me this is really important. I quite often go a little bit crazy, announce that I am going on some form of mad new crazy eating plan or fitness regime, and never quite manage it. This time, I planned out a 10k Tough Mudder event to complete in September 2022, I planned to start fasting in January of 2022 and I had an actual plan and thought process behind everything. This was so important for me.
So, the negative is, I didn’t run the 5k with my young person… the positive is that it kick started me into something important and something for me.
For those of you that might be interested in learning more about the Race for Life, here is a link to their website for more information.