Deane's Story
Thirteen years to the day that I set off for the Great Eastern half marathon I had been sitting next to my youngest daughter Lois in her hospital bed holding her hand while she was trying to understand the implications of what an ectopic pregnancy might mean for her and her husband’s future family plans and not having any answers was possibly the hardest and most upsetting time our family has had.
Thankfully The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust was on hand to both metaphorically and physically to take over the hand holding for Lois and help her through this most traumatic period of her life.
The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust has now become firm friends with our family and we try to do as much as possible to both promote and support their fantastic work, whether that is making people aware of their existence by wearing the purple or pink running vests when my wife and I run our weekly Park runs around the country, talking to people about the work that they do or raising the funds required to support this small charity that is unfunded by the government.
Last year my wife Janet raised money by entering and completing her first 10km race in her 70th year something she is proud of achieving.
This year I decided that I should also stretch myself so after 22 years since my last half marathon I entered the Great Eastern Half Marathon, being run in my hometown of Peterborough. My aim was to run it under two hours (twenty-two minutes faster than my previous time) but more importantly raise as much money as possible for The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust.
Although I run weekly, I hadn’t run any real distance other than 5km and the occasional 10km so I knew I really had to put some work in not only to achieve my target time but to actually finish the race at all.
To help with my training I felt I couldn’t just do it by going out on my own and just running so In March I contacted my local running club, the Red Rose Road Runners and became a member, the first time I’ve joined anything since becoming a Cub Scout.
By joining the running club, this gave me access to a group of like minded people that I could run with, chat to, make the training enjoyable and ensure that I pushed myself to continually improve.
Monday nights became Interval Training night being put through various running techniques by a qualified coach, Tuesday nights became Trail Running night, taking in some fabulous scenery in Lancashire as well as some lung busting hills, Friday was a gentle social run with tea and cake at the finish. Along with inter club races throughout the summer being a club runner really helped my progress.
Along with the club running, Saturdays would always involve a Parkrun somewhere in the country. A fabulous free to enter, timed 5km run, providing an opportunity to see how my performance was improving. My favourite Parkrun will always be when I get a chance to run with my 8-year-old Grandson Benjamin and occasionally my 11-year-old Granddaughter Molly, they are proof that an ectopic pregnancy doesn’t always mean an end of family dreams.
After a few months of training, I felt I was ready for longer distances, so a couple of 20km runs suggested that I was on course to meet my sub two-hour target.
Fundraising at this time was also going well, having achieved my target I was aware that requests for donations for all sorts of charities come into people’s inboxes all the time and I was amazed at the generosity and the amounts that were given.
Coming to the weekend of the Great Eastern Half Marathon, I warmed up on the Saturday with our weekly 5km Parkrun at the fabulous Rutland Water before moving on to Peterborough for the night.
The day of the race the running gods must have been in touch with the weather gods as unlike the day before it was dry, calm and just enough sun to take the chill off, perfect conditions for running.
The race event was both well organised and attended with 3500 runners competing with a further 750 taking part in a 5km Fun Run.
Pacers with flags on their backs with target finish time are included in the race which helped me keep pace with my predicted finish time of one hour and fifty minutes.
Along with the pacers, what helped enormously were the crowds of supporters along every stretch of the route cheering, clapping, ringing bells, blowing whistles and children offering high fives of encouragement made it a great atmosphere.
Seeing friends along the route that I grew up with made it special, as did running a section of my old paper round from forty-seven years ago and being able to remember which houses I delivered to!
The last 5km were a little tougher than the previous 16km but cheering crowds, a few jelly babies and the thought of why and who I was doing it for got me to the finish line in a time of 01:49:03 well ahead of my two-hour target.
Did I enjoy it? Every minute of it, although I’m might have said never again to Janet at the end.
Most importantly I’ve raised a little money, and even better a lady approached Janet after she saw her wearing her The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust running top to ask for details after her own ectopic pregnancy and was unaware that there is help and support available from some lovely people working for a lovely charity.
Our heartfelt thanks to Deane for bravely taking on this half marathon and raising essential funds and awareness. If you would like to raise funds and awareness for The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, please visit our fundraising page. You can also email our Fundraising Co-ordinator, Jill, who will be happy to help and guide you: Jill@ectopic.org.uk.