Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it

I have been unwell, and now I'm starting to feel better.

The sun came out today, and the air was warm. Some of the trees are starting to make cherry blossom. There are snowdrops in the back garden.

So I went for a run - the first one this year without my anorak. A marker! Things are Getting Better.

I decided for a change to go along an old favourite route that has been impassable for a while because of the weeks of rain and strong winds. For a long time it has been reduced to bog and broken branches. Today I decided to go along and see if the going had improved.

I'm on down time this week - short, restful runs ahead of the Silverstone half-marathon on Sunday. It's a welcome change from the long on-road routes I've been following to get the miles in in preparation for the London marathon in April. I don't like running on pavements as cars pass by me. I don't like audiences to my red face and wheezy uphill progress. I've missed the trails of the nearby nature reserve and the raggedy path through my favourite fields.

Anyway, the sun was shining, and I was feeling well and things were Getting Better, so I thought it was surely a sign that it was also time to go back to my favourite route.

To begin with all was fine. It was pretty damp, but that was to be expected, and it was nothing I couldn't handle. The fallen trees had all been cut and stacked. There was quite a bit of sawdust to soak up some of the mud.

Several bike trails helped. For the first mile I followed the flattened route laid down by multiple cyclists that led me through the marshiest parts of the path.

The sun went in pretty quickly, but that was ok too. I'd warmed up by then. And it was so nice to be running in just sleeves rather than the jumper and coat and hat I've been puffing around in for the last eight weeks.

Then I got to the top of a rise and looked down into acres of black bog. A horse in the nearby field whickered softly. I'm glad someone's getting a laugh out of my predicament, I thought, and stepped forward.

To begin with, I tried to edge around the side of it, running on tip-toes and hopping from island to island amid the drowned furrows. Very soon I was very tired. But I was too far in to turn back, so I pressed on.

Around the next corner I came to two hikers, stumbling upwards with walking poles and arctic boots.

"I say, well done," said the man.

"It's a bit muddy," said the woman.

I feigned a cheery wave and ploughed on past them. As I went out of sight around the next corner I misjudged a dry patch for a wet patch and went in up to my ankles. I said a very rude word very loudly. Small black birds went up like an exclamation from one of the bushes to my right.

At this point I knew that the path went down for another mile and then up for another mile and a half before I would emerge onto roadside. My attempts at hopping between seemingly safe bits weren't working and I was knackered, half-way into what was supposed to be a recovery run.

"Ah, f- it," I told the birds, and ran straight down the middle of the path.

There's something exhilarating about taking the dirtiest, nastiest route. I challenged it to break me. I whooped and laughed as I skidded and jumped and ran faster the dirtier I got.

I was feeling well, and things were Getting Better and even the mud didn't matter.

Then I fell into a dog shit.

(This is an event that would challenge the most talented of writers, so from where I sit it seemed pointless to even try to dress it up. And anyway, you can't polish a turd. So to speak.)

You'd think that among that amount of mud I would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between filth and faeces but reader, I could.

Now I know that many of the routes I enjoy running along are also enjoyed by dog owners. I have on occasion had a teeny weeny grumble about being chased by these dogs, or having to run around their owners clustered across the path having a nice long chat, oblivious to their little darlings' behaviour. I thought I had come to terms with the fact that these people - along with the ramblers who come downhill at me in pairs while I am coming uphill and force me to run balanced on the verge beside them - were just part of the scenery of being lucky enough in run in the semi-rural limits of London.

But finding the Taj Mahal of turds smeared up my leg and splattered - whisper it - possibly across my face - I suddenly felt very different.

Also, I didn't feel very well any more.

I kept going, then slipped again - in mud this time - and found that I was crying. I kept going, snivelling and hoping that no one would see me.

My path home seemed like a very long one. My path to feeling well again seemed even longer. I felt very sorry for myself. I felt very depressed.

Then I skidded again, and this time it was a proper pratfall. My arms windmilled, my knees went in opposite directions. I think I made an involuntary "Ag" sort of noise.

And then I started laughing.

And then the sun came out again.

And I had reached the end of the mud.

And then, after a good strong mile-long finish, I was home.

I didn't look at myself in the mirror. I put my clothes straight into the washing machine and myself straight into the shower.


I am getting better. There will always be shit. The trick is to keep going. And to try not to fall in it.

No, I don't fancy cleaning them either

Help me keep running, and help supporting children with autism. Please click here. Your support means everything and makes all the difference. 

Reasons to run, number 678,124,954

When the sun goes in again

and the mornings feel like you're sliding away into the dark

and all the words that might make you feel better are all words that you've used before, so many times, and it feels too much, too much to have to use them all again, to dig them all out and order them because it would just feel like you were kidding yourself or going through the motions

and anyway, really, three strikes and you're out, you should have a handle on this by now, get a grip, you're making people uncomfortable, stop being so self-absorbed, it's not about you, its about her, she's the one who needs your help, who tunes out more and more now or loses her rag so loudly, who watches her siblings go out to parties and sleepovers, who gets left behind and is never invited, so how dare you get upset or cry because its not about you its about her its about her

- but you are the person who has to sort it out, and keep encouraging and be positive and to do that you have to keep going even when all you can do is wonder what words to use and, while you're wondering that, listen to other people's words,

which fall like blows

like this one:

"I can't teach her any more. I can't - I'm not trained to work with These People - I'm very frustrated."

and this one:

"So, then, we'd like you all to look at your children when they are resting, or relaxing, and see what they are doing, and see what they like, and make a note. Perhaps that's something that you could encourage them to do in clubs, to meet friends."

(this is it? this is the sum total of your advice? don't you think i'm doing that? don't you think i've been doing that for years and years and years?)

and this one:

"He's not the first." "To be mean to you?" "To think I am incapable of getting hurt."

(and i'm wiping away tears in the dark before my husband sees i'm crying at the tv again)



and it's just

too much



so i run



Click here to find out how I'm aiming, via running, to help children with autism and Asperger's Syndrome learn, thrive and achieve.

Happy New Year

It is the middle of the night. I was fast asleep and now I am wide awake. I lie motionless for a moment and try to figure out what has woken me.

It only takes a moment before I hear it: Drip. Drip. Drip. A pause. And then another. A pause. And then another. Drip.

There is water coming into the bedroom. Now that I can hear it, I can hear too the rain and wind whipping at the windows and battering the house. I reach over to check the time: it's four o'clock in the morning. In three hours the holiday is over and everyone has to get up and go to work and to school.

Correction - the holiday is over right now.

I lean over and nudge my husband awake.

"We've got a leak," I whisper to him. He's awake instantly. Then there are lights on and moving and checking the attic and the windows and tip-toeing not to wake the children and whispering and putting down something to catch the water. My eyes feel scoured out and my head thumps with tiredness.

After a while, we put the lights out and get back into bed and try to sleep.

I can't sleep.

I am worried about going back to work and leaving my lovely girls. In particular I am worried about how Grace will cope with going back to school. Her school experience has improved vastly, almost beyond measure, at her new secondary. But still, it is often overwhelming for her and she gets very tired. The last two weeks of the last term were a maelstrom of tears and scenes and upset and forgetting and losing and needing to sleep and needing to be quiet, while routines moved and excitement built and lights blazed and daylight diminished and the world seemed to be tipped off-kilter.

I lie awake and listen to the drip and I worry.

After half an hour of this I am even more awake. I need to go to sleep, I tell myself, so I can be on good form to help Grace start term in - I check - two and a half hours. I need to go to sleep, I tell myself, so I can stay calm and happy and optimistic if she wakes to be none of those things herself. I check the time again. Five minutes later I check it again. My headache tightens.

At this point, out of nowhere, I remember the run I did on Sunday morning. It pops into my head unbidden and makes me smile into the darkness.

What a lovely, lovely run that was. New shoes, ready legs, starbursts in icy puddles. The air smelled of iron and the tang of forest mulch. The sun came out, like a reward. And then there was that wonderful moment, about three-quarters of the way through, when I realised that it was easy, so easy, and that I was flying, and I was smiling so widely that a passing car beeped at me, like it was saying hello to the local loony, and I didn't care because I loved my legs and my body and whoever was in that car and really, everyone in the world in fact, because I knew that everything, all of it, was just fine.

I lie in the darkness and laugh gently to myself at what I must have looked like and how great it felt, and I remember again why I run and I remember again that everything will be fine and that I can do this. Finally, sleep comes.

Just less than two hours later, the door flings open and Betty marches in, nightdress swinging, clutching a soft toy and what looks like a collection of her clothing, already mid-sentence: "..so Mummy, I thought... would you...? Teddy needs..." and she's climbing in, pressing her little toes into my side and elbowing space between my husband and me and there goes that last bit of sleep. I pull her to me briefly and squeeze her and kiss her soft cheek and re-direct her queries to my husband. I sit up and move my leaden legs out of bed. I pause, and think again of that run, and then I square my shoulders and go to Grace's bedroom.

My big girl is fast asleep. I get in beside her and put my arms around her and I hug her awake. For a brief moment she protests and then she smiles, eyes still closed, and hugs me back. She smells of vanilla and the soft stuff of dreams. I tell her I love her. She murmurs that she loves me. We count to three together, gently in the darkness, and then we both get up.

A short while later I wave her off at the front door. She steps outside into the dark and the rain and for a moment shudders. Then she pulls her hood over her head and turns to me and pulls a mock-groaning face and smiles and says 'Bye' and I say 'Bye, darling'. And both of us know that it's going to be alright.

If you liked this, or recognised some of it, or would like to know more, please consider supporting me in my London Marathon attempt this year. Click here to find out how I'm aiming, via running, to help children with autism and Asperger's Syndrome learn, thrive and achieve.

Making it Painless, like Potter

I'm running, and it's all wrong.

My head is down, when it should be up. My shoulders are round, when they should be back. My back is curved, when it should be straight. 

My knees - oh dear. My knees go in, when they should go out, and my feet go out, when they should go in. My heels go down when they should go up, and my toes go up when they should go down.

How I have managed to run any races at all - let alone finish them - seems a mystery.

The scene of my latest embarrassment is a quiet tree-lined dead-end road beside the local golf course. Amelia my trainer has taken me out for our first session in a long time. She is assessing me before we start formal marathon training, and she's not very happy with what she sees.

It's been so long since I did any strength work that I’m running like an old lady. All of my bad habits have got worse, and Amelia is warning me that unless I fix them, I’m in danger of experiencing the same excruciating back pain that poleaxed me during my training for London 2012.

So I’m listening. I don’t like what I hear. I’m ashamed by it. Some of it is the result of behaving like an arse, frankly. For most of this summer and autumn I ran random distances, rarely. I drank and I ate too much, and I went running with hangovers and indigestion. I shuffled, rather than ran. I didn’t do any sprints and the only intervals I completed were very short ones between opening bottles of wine.

Amelia gives me a look. She has a way of doing this very politely, I should add. But I still feel it. Amelia ran the Marathon des Sables this year. She’s planning for her next challenge to be the Mont Blanc 100. (That’s 100 miles up a mountain covered in ice.) I am 6ft 1 to her 5 ft 7, and I feel very small.

Amelia gives me a training plan, and a list of things to fix. I have to think about where I’m putting my feet when I run, and what I’m doing with my shoulders and my head. I have to start doing some speed work, and I have to start fixing my poor mushy core.

In essence, I have to pull myself together. Literally.

The next time I go out for a run, I list Amelia’s instructions in my head. My head must go back and my shoulders go up. No – my head goes up and knees go back. No – my feet go down and my head goes out. No - ... I am exhausted before I get to the end of the street.

It would be funny were it not so frustrating. As I hop and shuffle and jerk down the avenue, muttering to myself and hoping no-one is watching me, I remember a scene in an old film called The Paleface, starring Bob Hope and Jane Russell. The action is set in the Wild West and Hope plays a cowardly dentist - of all things – who goes by the name of “Painless” Peter Potter and finds himself married to the delicious Russell. In a turn of events too complicated to go into here, Hope – who can’t shoot a gun but can shoot off his mouth – gets set up for a confrontation with the baddy who has just run into town. In a scene that makes my mum and me howl every time we watch it, he is approached by a number of grizzled saloon regulars who whisper lines of advice to him – “He draws from the left, so lean to the right”, “There’s a wind from the east, so aim to the west”, “He crouches when he shoots, so stand on your toes”. By the end, cross-eyed with the effort of maintaining his bravado and remembering his instructions, Hope is shuffling and sloping along the now-deserted main street, muttering “He draws on his toes, to lean towards the wind..  There’s a wind from the east, better lean to the right.”

I am laughing out loud now as I run. I hold my head up very straight. It feels very odd. I can’t see my feet. I realise that I have got used to watching my feet. I have got used to a process of running that is only about putting one foot in front of another. When I run with my head up, not watching my feet, I realise how long it is since I looked at the horizon.

I think about the reasons I run. I think about the reason I last ran the London Marathon. I think about how painful my life was and how painful Grace’s life was and how painful the training was, and the pain of the Marathon itself.

Then I think about why I’m running the London Marathon again. Life is better. Mostly, the pain has gone. So maybe I should start running like life is good again.

As I think these things, my shoulders go back and my back straightens and I am suddenly properly running. At last.

On being ambitious

Oh, the perils of being ambitious.

The pain of being possessed of that drive to exceed that can so often place you in awkward circumstances. The aggravation of not being able to shut down that voice in your head that keeps telling you: "Go on. Do more."

It's particularly vexing if you're an ambitious Brit, and that urge results in you Putting Yourself Out There (shudder) - exposed to the comment and analysis of others.

Being aware of all this, I often wonder why I persist. Right now, I'm wondering it again because again, I find myself running uphill in the rain.

Ah, running in the rain. Uphill. In November. My face is numb with cold and my fingers are burning. My hair is in rats' tails. And my bum hurts.

I am doing this because my ambition has got the better of me. I am doing this despite the fact that my last run was so awful I haven't blogged - or run - for a month. My last run was the Royal Parks half-marathon in October, which I flailed around in such an ungainly manner, leaking both tears and sweat, and finishing a full two minutes slower than my previous slowest time, that I couldn't bring myself to revisit it in writing. I spent the following weeks Not Running, nursing my wounded pride and consulting various running clinics, nutrition and training experts on why it was that I seemed so unable to run fast. Or at least, faster. My ambition was such that even while feeling like a prize chump - both the Laurel AND Hardy of my running community - I was looking for an expert to tell me that it was entirely possible for me to run an ultra, or a triathlon. Which is what most of my online running friends seem to be doing these days. (Seriously. Could you all just knock it off?) One trainer told me, sympathetically: "We're not all built to be marathon runners, you know." I didn't call him back.

Anyway, while I was feeling sorry for myself, my daughter was getting on with it. Gracie is showing her new school and her new teachers what she's made of. And she's made of good stuff. We've had some hiccups, sure. There's been some fine-tuning of the support she gets. But the school and she are doing well. I am glad to be ambitious about her. I am glad to be ambitious about her future. I am happy that I can be. It still bothers me, though, that it took us so long to get here, and it bothers me that it took so much yelling and screaming to get people to listen and act. I find I am too ambitious to be happy with our lot now. I am too ambitious to shuffle back to my box with what I got.

So in sum: I'm out here running in the rain because I am ambitious for my daughter, I am ambitious for other children with autism, and I'm ambitious to do more to help. I'm out here running in the rain because next April 13, 2014, I will be running with team Ambitious about Autism - the national charity that seeks to help children with autism thrive. I will be running all 26.2 miles of the London Marathon. Again.

At the thought of what I've signed myself up for, my stomach gives a lurch. At the same time, I splash through a puddle much deeper than I expected it to be and my feet turn instantly wet. I try not to think about the mud between my toes, and I keep going. I am feeling a bit sick about the training ahead of me, and I'm feeling a bit sick about the race next year, and I'm feeling a bit sick about asking people to help me raise money, yet again.

But then I think again to last night's parents evening at Grace's school, to her form teacher leaning forward with a big smile to tell us that that Grace is making "fantastic progress", that every one of her teachers has commented on the quality of her participation and contribution. I think again of Grace's happy smile. We have a happy ending. Or at least, a happy continuation.

I want this for other kids too. So I'm sorry to everyone I swore I'd never ask again for money but - hey - never say never again, right? Please will you be ambitious with me? If you can get me to the first £1000, my employer and I can match it. (To family and local friends - I'll be holding a big party early next year and selling tickets. Please come!) I don't want to be happy with what Grace and I have got. I want it for other children with autism too.

When I got home, I found I'd done my usual circuit 2 minutes faster than usual. And then I found this notification card on the doormat, with Grace's name on it:

Be ambitious about autism with me if you can. Ambitious about Autism's stated aim is to make the ordinary possible for children and young people with autism and its mission is to help them to learn, thrive and achieve. Help us by sharing this post on Facebook or Twitter and by clicking here 

Naked running

It's Saturday morning and time for my long run: the part of my training that still gives me butterflies and can cause me to wake up early with nerves.

The Royal Parks half-marathon is three weeks away, so this morning I am planning to run ten miles. It's not quite where I wanted to be at this point - a hiccup (read: prolonged summer holiday laziness) near the start of my training plan means that rather than peaking now with my longest runs, and having the time to taper off with a restful short run before the race, I will be instead be working hard to steadily add the miles, and hopefully the stamina, right up to October 6.

It's been a tense couple of weeks. I have not been calm in preparation for this race this year, not at all. My nutritional input has contained far more alcohol than is wise, and my sleep bank is sorely depleted. I'm still mainlining quinoa in the hope that it will counter some of the stupid decisions I have made lately about what I've put in my body (and also if I'm honest in the hope that one morning I will wake up looking like Gwyneth Paltrow) but I have no illusions about the damage I've done to my energy stores. So this morning, as I'm getting dressed in my running gear, I'm feeling nervous and a bit guilty about how my legs will cope with the miles I'm about to ask of them. Also: it's raining. Really properly raining. I'm about to go out with a hangover (don't try this at home) and bags under my eyes so big that Ryanair would charge me double, and to cap it all it's raining.

I automatically reach for my ipod. Lately I have been relying heavily on loud music to distract me from the pain of running longish distances feeling underprepared. I admit it: too much of my training this time around has felt like a chore. But this morning my entire songlist looks inadequate: cheesy, repetitive, dull. On a good day I'm happy to admit this about my running music tastes - who needs thoughtfulness when you can have a stupidly happy bass line that will pound under your feet as well as in your ears? This morning however it's clear that there's nothing here that will help me.

Taking a deep breath I make a bold decision. This morning I'm going to run as God intended: naked of earphones, wire and MP3. I am going to run Without Music.

Quickly I grab my water bottle and watch and step outside and shut the front door before I can change my mind. Immediately the coldness of the air on my bare legs makes me whimper. I zip up my anorak and tell myself to get on with it. My watch gives the soft bleep that tells me my pace is now being tallied and judged. A gust of wind raises a line of goose bumps across my shin. Ugh ugh ugh. I take a deep breath and

I am running. For a while I can't hear anything despite the lack of headphones. My fatigue is making me numb to my surroundings. Gradually a sound emerges: the patter of rain on my back. Then the whisper of the material of my hood moving against my ears as I run. It quickly becomes annoying and I push it back so my head is exposed. My face is wet in moments. Sod it, I think and I

run a bit faster. For the next ten minutes I deliberately empty my mind: the mental equivalent of hiding under the bed. After a while - arms still moving, legs still moving, silence all around (I have set off early in the morning to avoid more people seeing my humiliation) - I let myself emerge again. Strangely, nothing hurts. My legs feel steady, my back feels strong. Without the music pushing me forward I have found my own rhythm. Not just that, but I have found a rhythm that suits me better. I am holding myself straighter and breathing more easily when I don't have to force myself to keep up with someone else's timing.

I smile and feel relieved, until I remember: what about the hill that's coming up in a mile or two? I think for a moment, and swerve down an avenue to my left, making up a new route on the go to try to maintain this happy equilibrium.  I run on, and on and still I am feeling good. I cross the park, and right on cue a scrappy little terrier wearing a ridiculous raincoat comes at me and I have to do a little sideways quickstep to avoid kicking it (tempting though it is) and then falter for a moment when it comes back at my heels but then there is the owner, with the grace to look embarrassed (by the dog or by the coat, I can't tell) and I am running freely again and even the lurch in my rhythm doesn't seem to have done any damage

and this is lovely - so lovely that in fact I am absent-mindedly wondering whether or not I could get away with more wine as part of my training programme though surely actually that would be physically impossible - when I realise that for the last three miles I have been running downhill and that that means in a little while I will be running three miles uphill and that those three miles will be miles 7, 8 and 9 - with no music. A blip of panic grips me briefly, but I take a deep breath and tell myself that everything will be fine and I look around me a bit more because also, I realise, when I'm not plugged in to mindless beats, I am paying far more attention in general.

It is still raining, but the steady drops have changed to more of a mist - the kind of English rain that blessed so many complexions before the invention of fake tan - and it's deeply refreshing. I feel as though I am rehydrating through my skin as well as from my water bottle. The path is patterned with pretty yellow almond-shaped leaves from the trees that line misty, muddy fields on my left and birds sing and shuttle back and forth over my head and the earth smells clean and fresh and even the occasional shush of cars passing on wet roads sounds soothing. I feel happy and fit and calm and I remember why I love so very much to run. I run away from my problems, I run to solve them, and I run back to them with a new perspective. I run because I know that with the money I raise from this race I will help the National Autistic Society to help more people like Grace and me. I run because it reminds me how strong my body is. I run to remember who I am. Small wonder I've been finding it difficult with other people's voices in my head.

Next Saturday it's 11 miles. I plan to do them au naturel, too. Brace yourselves ..


I will be running the Royal Parks Half-Marathon for the third time on October 6, in aid of the National Autistic Society. To support me, and the work that the NAS does to support people affected by autism, please click here

Be Prepared

When I was nine, I was briefly a member of the Brownies. You'll note I don't say I was a Brownie. That's because I don't feel that I was there long enough to do justice to the uniform.  I managed twelve weeks in total - long enough to encompass the Hallowe'en party, the Christmas disco and the New Year pantomime trip. Then, with a long period looming that promised little but washing socks for the Housekeeper's badge, I left, adrenaline junkie that I am, to seek my kicks elsewhere.

Thirty-three years later, I am running, and it's going phenomenally badly, and for some reason the Brownie motto is going around and around my head: Be Prepared. I am not prepared at all. I am running a half-marathon in six weeks' time and I am not prepared for it. I am running to raise money for the National Autistic Society and to raise awareness of autism, because of the experiences of my daughter, who has Asperger's Syndrome, and my daughter is starting secondary school almost RIGHT NOW and I am not prepared for that either, at all.

I don't mean I'm not prepared. I mean I'm not prepared. I've bought her new uniform, and her new shoes, and her new schoolbag. I've bought her some stress balls, and an alarm clock that will wake her with light and natural noises to try to minimise the stress of getting up. I've talked through the transition with her countless times and I've emailed and spoken to the woman who will be coming to pick her up and travel in with her on the bus for the school's statemented kids. But I'm not prepared. My girl is going to a new school, with all the change and people and noise and bustle and smells and demands and schedules and people, people, faces, faces, talking talking talking that that involves for her, and I don't know how she will be and I don't know how to prepare for that. So I am running to get strong at least, but if the level of my running ability is any reflection on my current levels of core strength, then I am royally screwed on that front too.

I have run half a mile and already I am staggering and weaving. There is absolutely nothing in my legs. This is because I have overtrained and underslept, a killer combination. That week in France when I let myself go easy on the runs turned into another week in France when I only did one or two runs, which turned into another week in France (I know - jammy) in which I mainly ate and lay in the sun. And then that turned into a week at home in the sun, eking out the summer, in which I didn't really do much, and and and and suddenly I had seven weeks to get ready to run 13.1 miles and went mad with panic and now here I am and I've just looked at my watch and it's crawling and I'm crawling and I've still got another six miles to do.

Be Prepared. Be Prepared.

As I groan and stagger on I tell myself that the process of getting prepared is simple: I just have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. If I keep going then hopefully at some point I will find that I am prepared. This is endurance training, after all. They call it that because it hurts, and it teaches you to endure.

So I keep running and though every single minute of the bloody run is bloody torture I am absolutely determined to finish it - because if I don't finish it then I won't have anything to point to and say 'look, I did this, which means I can do .. this', without which I won't get through the week - and so I do finish it. Then I hobble home to tick off the next box on my training plan.

Over the next few days as I chip away at the preparations for my event, and for Grace's event - interval runs, ugh, and sewing her school badge on her blazer skewiff, ugh - I realise that it's not just about being prepared, it's about how you act when the moment arrives. You can prepare all you like, but how you act when the pressure is on is just as important, and Grace, my Grace, always shows grace under pressure, at least in the big picture when you look at what she is coping with every day - what's a few meltdowns between friends and relatives - and so, so can I.

I may not be prepared yet, not really, but I am another step towards being prepared by having remembered that keeping going is important too.

So this one's for everyone who is starting school this week - children and parents alike. You can do it. We'll be right alongside you.

Just keep going.

Just keep going.



I am running the Royal Parks Half-Marathon on October 6 in aid of The National Autistic Society. I will be ready! Meanwhile if you would like to ease the pain of my preparations, please click here

For more information about me and Grace Under Pressure, please click here