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to run
I began my career as a clerical assistant in the Civil Service at MAFF (Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food). I was a very quiet and withdrawn person and struggled to gain promotion due to my communication skills. It was while I was there that I met my inspiration to run, David Blyth, who was approaching retirement, always ran to work and home, and he always talked to me as I was so quiet and said I was the perfect build to run. I went to watch David run the Cambridge Half Marathon in July 1983 and was amazed to see over a thousand runners doing this race and running. I vowed I would do the race the following year but did nothing about it. At Christmas David bought me a pair of running shoes for a present. I felt so guilty and had no excuse then so started running. I could not even run a mile I was so unfit. By the July I had run up to 8 miles and was chuffed to bits to complete the half marathon without stopping to walk in around 2hrs15mins. Frustrated with struggling to gain promotion at MAFF I left to work for Schering Agrochemicals at Chesterford Park near Saffron Waldon. Here I did stores duties and driving. After getting fed up with all the travelling and looking through the jobs paper I decided to become a bus driver. My first marathon It was 2 years after my first half marathon that I completed the London Marathon in 1986 - it was so moving to do this race and is hard to describe the emotion of finishing my first marathon. At this point I was a bus driver working for a company called Cambus. It was while there that my other passion took over - fell walking. On all my long weekends off I would head up north to the hills. I also backpacked for my holidays and walked all the National Long Distance footpaths like the Pennine Way. A move north At the age of 25 and with no prospects, living in a one room bedsit in Cambridge I pondered my future. I could not afford to get on the property ladder and hated congested Cambridge. I took a week off work and toured the country trying to decide where to live - I wanted cheap housing and hills. Carlisle and Middlesbrough were my two choices but Middlesbrough won because it's drier in the east and I hate rain. It took a year
before I moved into my new Wimpey home - a 3 bedroomed house in
Grangetown with the Eston Hills visible from my house - and all
cheaper than my bedsit in Cambridge. I left my job and started with a north-east bus company - its changed names so many times it's not worth mentioning. It was here that I met Bill - he joined the bus company a month after me after leaving the army, but it was not until a group of bus drivers decided to train for the Great North Run that we got it together. We completed the event as a team and then Bill continued to train with me. It was a year later in February when Bill popped the question of marriage. We were married 3 weeks later in Gretna Green dragging two people off the street to be our witnesses. That was on 6th March 1992. Increasing the distance The running and hill walking continued and I walked the entire length of the Pyrenees with Bill as well as going round and up Mont Blanc. The running progressed with LDWA events in the North York Moors and a couple of 50+ mile events where I realised I was quite good. It was not until 1993 that I had a crack at the annual LDWA 100 miles that was held in Cleveland that year. Of the 499 competitors I came home in the top 5. Back to education It was then that the next twist of fate happened. Three lads got on my bus at 5pm one evening and when they got off two of them decided to beat me up and take my money. That was the end of the job for me and so I went back to my school day dreams and got the opportunity to return to education. After completing a one-year access course at Longlands College I went to do a Sport Science Degree at the University of Teesside. Joining the GB team While at University, I had more time to train and in 1994 had a crack at doing a 100km road race with a view to getting selection for the GB team. I did a preparation race at the Barry 40 - a 40 mile track race to test my mental strength. I came through this by being the only person in the field to do a negative split and finished strongly. Next was the British 100km Championships where I shocked everyone - including myself - by winning the title in a time of 8hr 40mins. Sub-nine hours was the selection time and immediately upon finishing I was offered a place in the team for the European 100km Championships in September 1994 at Winschoten, Holland. Training progressed and I completed that race finishing in 6th place with 8hrs 28mins and first British lady to finish. I was then at University and learning more about my body and my sport all the time. At the end of the year to finish the year off I tried the AAA of England 24-hours Championships - into the unknown again. I finished with my second title of the year with a distance of 127 miles. 1995 was to see me get my first international team medal, the first of many that I have collected. The years of training and racing are probably best read from the races pages and international performances for 100kms and 24hours. While at Teesside University Bill and I moved to live in Guisborough with access to the North York Moors on our doorstep. Changing jobs After finishing University I struggled to get an appropriate job and started my employment again by delivering sandwiches for Brambles. From here I went on to work for Securicor Omega Express before finally securing work at Sunderland University as a lecturer. The travelling however was making the running too hard to complete and eventually I returned to work as a part time lecturer at Middlesbrough College. Another twist of fortune after Bill got assaulted on the buses saw him become a lorry driver, but the profession was so volatile that he got through five jobs in one year. So by trying to put fate in our own hands we both trained in Sports and Remedial Massage with a view to setting up our own business and becoming self employed. A year of good and bad In January 2000 we set up our new business while continuing in our present jobs - but 2000 was a bad year for me. Our transport consisted of a camper van for travelling and support at races and a 125cc scooter. It was while returning home from work on the scooter after it had just been serviced that a car came out of a side road and hit me side on. The bike landed on my left ankle badly damaging it and I feared I would never be an ultra-distance athlete again. I did a 24-hour race and still won it despite stopping after 20 hours with ankle problems. I then gave triathlons and race walking a go trying to maintain my fitness and training. It seemed to be my race walking that finally fixed the weak ankle and I got back to international athletics in 2002. Back
from injury stronger than ever Year 2003 was a very different year with competing in the Flora 1000 Mile Challenge. This was a unique event that was only ever going to be staged once since Captain Barclay last did this nearly 200 years ago. This disrupted normal training and took out the first few months of the year. There is a section on this website dedicated to this challenge so I will not replicate that here. After the challenge I got straight back into my normal training and racing routine immediately. I performed well for the first few weeks but then seemed to suffer various setbacks with minor injuries that prevented me from performing well. I managed to get selection for the Anglo-Celtic Plate at Edinburgh in July but a pull in my glutes prevented me from performing well and came home in 4th place, an event I have won in the past. I had a couple of weeks rest then before starting training for the inaugural World 24 Hours Championships which was also the European 24 Hour Championships. I had a few problems in the last couple of weeks with the selectors but finally managed to represent my country and although I ran well with 205km (128 miles), was disappointed to drop to 15th in the world. This was the highest class race ever staged and the most women ever over 200km in any one year. My details: Family: Education:
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