Since the beginning of 2019, I’ve noticed myself regaining my sense of daring, of refusing to allow my disabilities to hold me back from doing anything I want to do. I had just recently come off the back of my first Hexhamshire Hobble (a 10.41 mile or so fell run covering the picturesque Hexhamshire common). For those of you who have read this blog before you will know how much of an achievement that was for me, running in at just over 2 hours. As 2019 progressed I began to get involved in weightlifting, eventually entering into my first (albeit very low ranked) strongman competition. Whilst I wasn’t able to lift my maximum nominated weight of 155kg, I did comfortably lift 130 and 140kg effectively single handedly (using a weightlifting hook for my stump hand).
Now its 2020, I am taking on a very different type of challenge. I have entered my first ever Great North Run, electing to run on behalf of a wonderful charity, Scope. I’ve never allowed my disabilities to hold me back in life, and I want to help Scope ensure that no disabled person is held back in whatever they want to do. If you would like to donate towards helping me reach my goal then I’ll include a link at the bottom of this blog entry!
I’ll be updating this blog monthly with my training progress to let you all know how I’m getting on. Luckily cause I live in a fairly rural part of the North East I have plenty of runs available to me, a couple of five milers and one 10 miler over the fells. Genuinely so excited to take part in the worlds largest half marathon and hopefully raise a good chunk of money for such a worthy cause!
If you’d like to learn more about Scope then you can read about them here. If you’d like to learn more about some of the valuable work they do in ensuring equality for disabled people across the country then you can check out their campaigns here
If you are able to and would like to donate then you can do so here. Any contributions would be very welcome!
If any of my fellow word(press)-smiths are running this year then all the best in training and I’ll see you in Newcastle in September!
Anthformation 