I’m Jemma, a 39 year mum of two. I came to running after having my first daughter. I’d gained a lot of weight and wanted a free way to lose the baby weight. I thought anyone could be a runner so I laced up my ancient trainers and tried to run. I reached 0.4 miles before I burst into tears declaring running was awful and I hated it and never wanted to try it again! I was broke as I’d left my well paid job to be a stay at home mum, so without the luxury of a gym membership I was out of options. I made the decision to try again and I’m so glad I did, as it changed my life forever.
More on my story hereNot having the luxury of running friends or social media for guidance, I just went at it alone. I made many, many mistakes along the way, but I had a try-hard attitude which meant I didn’t quit. I wanted a huge challenge so I entered Bristol half marathon in 2012 and trained solidly for six months. I’m happy to say that I completed that half marathon and something happened as I crossed that finish line; running had me hooked.
A year later I got pregnant with my second daughter and running got put on hold as it just didn’t feel right, for me it was too uncomfortable. After the birth I was really keen to grab my trainers and get back to business as this time I had gained 4 stone. I was quite badly damaged from my seemingly brilliant water birth and it took me a further 10 months to lace up and start to run again.
This is where it gets interesting! I was getting back into running and discovered Parkrun and one week, my photo was taken by the photographer there. I sent this photo to ‘This Girl Can’, a new campaign to empower woman to get involved in sport. I was randomly chosen and asked if I wanted to be involved in a Marks and Spencer advert for the ‘This Girl Can’ clothing range, which would include real girls from the campaign! Of course I was over the moon to be asked and even happier that I was going to be paid £300 which was a lot of money when you hadn’t worked in years!
I went off to London and had a fantastic day at the photo shoot (which was surreal!), and on the way home, sat in the back of the taxi wondering what I was going to do with the money! To celebrate being chosen I wanted to do something really life changing, so naturally a girl who was only just back running 5k was going to pick a 100k ultra marathon to train for!!
I had no idea if I could even complete such a mammoth challenge but I wanted to document this journey, which is when I decided to join Instagram. I knew nothing about it other than it was a photo sharing platform and I was boring the hell out of my Facebook friends (it’s not often I say this but that social media platform changed my life!). I was no longer just a Mum, I was my own person with my own story, and other people were actually interested in my journey.
When I completed the ultra and had my girls meet me at the finish line, it’s a moment I will never forget. It was a real ‘I did it’ moment! Training with a young family was not without its challenges and I was even still breast-feeding at the time, so I really tested the limits of what my postpartum body could do.
I found the incredible running community and began to be coached myself, and my coach saw something in me I couldn’t quite see for myself, my potential. I have now thanks to a solid foundation of base fitness and bespoke training, qualified for Boston Marathon not 1, not 2, but 3 times in the space of 9 months, and achieved what I consider my most important gift from running, the most solid foundation of belief in myself post children.