Raquel's 40 Race Challenge

Ooops - wrote this a while ago and forgot to post it! At this point in the challenge I thought I'd share a few statistics to show my progress: 75% of the challenge events have been planned (completed/entered or scheduled) I am 17.5 % of the way through the challenge  £745 raised so far which is 15% of my target 2,269 hits on this blog with an audience from 6 different countries I wanted to start on a positive note because I'm not sure if anyone noticed but Event 7 should have actually been MoRun. MoRun was a 5km family fun run but after some bitterly cold weather one of my daughters said she didn't want to take part and thats fine - my kids taking part is all about inclusion and fun so if they don't fancy it, there will always be a next one. So me, Seb and Sienna headed to Hove donned in our running gear and moustaches! After a bit of a frantic search to find the start line where we initially thought the Hove parkrun was the MoRun we found the right place...

On a cold and fresh Sunday morning we gathered together for Angels Walk which is a walk, skip or run over a 5km or 10km route around Peacehaven, kids and dogs welcome, in aid of the NSPCC. Dawn Paul organises this event annually from Peacehaven Big Park. I am in awe of this lady who puts so much of her time and effort into helping with these kinds of events in the area. If you are into running and charitable work in the area or you have ever run Peacehaven Parkrun then you will know Dawn! We had to wrap up warm for this one and me, my Dad, my friend Erin and my two youngest children Sienna (5) and Amelie (4) set off on our walk of the 5km route. Seb, after enjoying running with Runpals so much the previous Wednesday for Runpals Run the Snails spotted a few of the pals and begged me to let him run the 10km route with them so off he went!  Well, I can honestly say this was the hardest event by far, you know that warning "never work with animals or children"......... ...

Did you know that when we are struggling to cope, our minds close down on creativity and our problem solving skills become much more limited giving us a kind of tunnel vision which has deadly consequences because we begin to believe that suicide is the only option, our brains can become ill and can't see another way. But thoughts and feelings of believing its best to end your life do pass. What you have to do is get through this dangerous point in time. This can be done by reaching out to someone, anyone. And there is also self help. When I was really struggling with grief my brother-in-law sent me this article. Chris Cornell - When Suicide Doesn't Make Sense by Julie. A. Fast    He was trying to help me understand why people sometimes totally unexpectedly take their own life but what really touched a cord with me was the action one can take to prevent themselves succumbing to suicide. Its basically a suicide prevention plan. Although I think in this current climat...

This event was a special one for me in many ways. It was the first event of my challenge that is family friendly which means kids could take part too. Not all kids as its too far for the really little ones (although a buggy would have been okay I guess!).....but if they can really run - they're in! No over 18s stipulation or anything like that. I have really tried to keep my challenges varied to be as inclusive as possible with my kids and I have lots of kid friendly ones to come. In between these, I am also choosing events to really challenge myself, I've just signed up for an Ultra Challenge in June....eeeek! Secondly, this was the first event of my challenge that wasn't planned by me and it was pretty refreshing to be able to just parachute into this event without the need to have to plan everything. I've been following the Runpals running group for a while now and know quite a few of their members and when Naomi added me to the facebook group I was just in ti...