Running for all the right reasons (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Running for all the right reasons

3:50pm Friday 19th February 2010

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THOSE who know me say I am a bit of a control freak and they are probably right.

When I lose this control, my response is simply to go into Forrest Gump mode, put my trainers on and start running.

And a bit like Tom Hanks in the movie, I do tend to go on a bit (I’m talking running here, by the way!).

In fact I usually forget my progressing years and opt for some pretty silly distances – like 26.2 miles.

It first occurred eight years ago. The wait to adopt our youngest child was driving me to distraction and as the months dragged by I took out my frustrations on the roads around my village.

Finding running a bit pointless without a target I decided to give myself added incentive and on the basis that I would be training over the summer (I hate running in the cold and wet) I opted for the New York Marathon.

Fast forward five years and the death of my brother-in-law heralded another Gump moment. This time my sights were set on the London Marathon - which fell on his birthday and I pounded out my frustrations at his untimely passing by raising over £6,000 for Cancer Research.

Now I find myself at that same place. It’s cancer again, but this time it’s my widowed sister whose fighting it and so on the trainers have gone and I have set myself the challenge of not one, not two, but three marathons - this time for a breast cancer charity.

So I’m running Paris on April 11th,, London two weeks later and then, cunningly, on May 15th I am power walking the London MoonWalk Marathon with my sister.

Fortunately, if I even so much as break into a run there I’ll be disqualified, but somehow I don’t think there will be much chance of that!

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