Badass Mama Kirsty Shares Her Running Journey

I had lost 4 stone with Slimming World and had plateaued slightly, I needed something to help shift the last stone and knew that Parkrun wasn't far from starting up again following the lockdowns. I had done parkrun over 20 times before, but personally felt I didn't do it "properly", and wanted to be in a better position when it finally started back up again. My boss (who is a marathon and ultra runner) suggested C25K to get me started again. So, on one of my rest days, I set off with Sarah Millican telling me what to do and when.

I felt so proud of that first run, and carried on with the different weeks, with Sarah still in my head, telling me that she knew how I felt at the end of a run (yeah right!). During the weeks I found Badass Mother Runners and found a place to post my races without feeling judged by social media friends.

By the end of C25K, I found a new love of running, appreciating what it did for me both mentally and physically. I work for one of the emergency services in their control room, I read and hear things everyday that would haunt most people, but whilst I am certainly not most people, I found my mental resilience starting to fail, until that is, I found running.

Running is my time to process what I read and hear at work, my time to process the tough times at home (at the time of writing, we are waiting for an appointment to have my eldest assessed for ADHD) and my time to spend by myself.

With my job, I work a shift pattern of up to 60 hours in 6 days working earlies, lates and nights, and have 4 rest days before doing all again. My rest days and time before/after work is normally spent dealing with my two boys, so I make sure I plan running time, it's even put into my diary for my husband to see!

When you feel all the benefits of running, you will plan the time to go out on a run (mine is normally after dropping my boys off at school and nursery as I am definitely a morning runner). My runs are normally second and fourth rest day, first late and first night shift (all other days are rest days from exercise or I whack in a gym session).

Watching the 2021 London Marathon and watching Bev's progress, I did something which at the time felt that it wouldn't happen, and that was put myself into a charity place ballot for the 2022 London Marathon, and lo and behold, I got a place! I am running it in memory of a very close cousin of mine who I lost very unexpectedly last year whilst waiting for a heart transplant, the day of the run itself being on the first anniversary of his passing.

The furthest I have ever run is 11K (and that was run/walking) not sure how we will get on doing a marathon, but the plan is just to get round on the day!

In essence, I am a full time, shift working mum of two boys who both still need a lot of attention, working in an environment which can be horrendous on your mental health, running to process all the information my noggin holds, whilst maintaining my now 5 stone weight loss and still enjoying cake!

Meet Kirsty...

My name is Kirsty, I am 33 (34 in February), a mum to two active boys under 6, wife to a fantastic husband and a full time shift worker for one of our amazing emergency services.

You can follow Kirsty's journey to marathon over on Instagram @kirsty_runs_and_squats

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