My Plan B: DIY 1/2 marathon raising money for I AM HOPE

On Sunday the 12th of December, I’m going to be running my first ever half marathon. It’s not quite going to be what I thought it would be because the event I signed up to has been postponed until March. So, this means that I’m going for the Plan B option which is a DIY ½ marathon in my local neighbourhood of Pt Chevalier.

I see this Plan B as absolutely appropriate for the situation, given how many Plan Bs (and Cs and Ds) that I’ve had to put in place over the last few months.

Four months ago, I was a non-runner. My first ever run in August was 1min run/1 minute walk 10 times and I came back exhausted thinking that it was going to be very very hard to keep going. My initial goal was to run 3.5k which was my daughter’s cross country distance as a deal that she would do her run without grizzling if I could complete it. I got to the 3.5k, but she never got to run her cross-country because we went into lockdown. And, I went into a bit of a dark space. I knew that I needed to do something and decided that I’d started this running malarky so why not continue it and see how far I could go. I signed myself up for a half marathon to set some sort of goal and away I went out 4 times a week in the early morning. And, as the weeks went by, I got stronger mentally and physically (with some bumps along the way). I went from running in the dark in Winter to running in bright sunshine as Spring moves into Summer which is a lovely analogy to my own mental wellbeing.

And, I recognise just how tough the last 2 years have been for so many of our tamariki (kids) and so I would like to dedicate my run to “I am Hope” – an organisation that offers free counselling to our young people in the hope that they will find their hope to keep going even when the going is tough.

Please donate either through your words and/or money to support our kids’ mental wellbeing.