Just over 21km at just under 21 weeks

On the first weekend of May, my Dad drove up to the Lake District to run a half marathon with me.

And when I say ‘with me’ - it was Dad’s race really. Perhaps his third favourite hobby - after falling asleep on the sofa and drinking cups of tea in the garden when it’s not quite warm enough - is researching holidays to go on and activities to do. He was keen for redemption after pulling his calf at Grizedale Half Marathon in February (his comeback run following hip surgery 14 months earlier) and apparently the Staveley Half Marathon fit the bill.

When he first suggested this, back in early February, I was less than 8 weeks into the whole growing-a-baby thing and had no idea how the rest of it was going to pan out. Everybody I know (friends, family, people on the internet) who’s done it has had a completely different experience. Some of them were basically immobile for the whole nine months, while others were winning parkrun the morning they gave birth.

I was lucky on the sickness front. I…