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I'm back and this one really is all about me

Hi Everyone!

So its been a while since I have written an official blog but I have done a couple of race reports. If you haven't read them please check them out. If this is the first time you have read one of my posts, welcome and thank you for coming along on this journey with me.  Please go back and check out my previous posts if you have't already. If you have been with me before you will know that I stopped writing my blog a while ago and I would like to quickly explain why. I hope you were all enjoying my posts but I believed that what I was writing about was becoming a bit repetitive and boring and that's the last thing I wanted this blog to be. So I took some time away from it to have a good thinking about how I was going to improve my posts and make them more interesting. In past posts I have spoken a lot about my training and what Jessie May does but I haven't really said a lot about myself, my family or the people I work with at Jessie May. I thought it would be fun to give you an insight into these people and how amazing they really are. I have also included some questions about Jessie May so hopefully for those of you that aren't familiar with the charity will get a bit more information about what we do. This week I'm going to start with myself but first of all a quick update on how the fundraising and training has been progressing.

The total raised so far stands at a MASSIVE £1343.44!, this means we are 44% of the way to hitting the target total of £3000. Thank you so much to everyone that has donated, every penny truly does matter and will all go to Jessie May. We still have a long way to go and if you haven't yet donated and have a few pennies to spare please click here and it will take you to my Virgin Money Giving page. I have promised to give a shout out to all the people that work at City West Commercials UK, they not only provide Jessie May with two vans that are used for transporting equipment to fundraising events and sometimes nurses to visits. They have now also raised £466.44 from a bike or bake challenge. This money has been donated to my The Difference a Day Makes fundraiser and will make a big differences to the children we look after.

Training has been going well, I have completed my first marathon, please check out the Newport marathon race report to see how it went. I have now switched my attention to training for the Conti Thunder Run, this is the 24 hour running event. There is a 10km course that you run around as many time as you can in a 24 hour period. It starts on the 20th July at midday and finishes at midday on the 21st July. I intend to keep moving forward for the full 24 hours but we shall see how things go. I have a target of 10 laps which is 100km, for those of you that work in miles like I do that is 60 miles, roughly the distance from Bristol to Exeter. Training wise, I am still running every Tuesday and Thursday mornings, Parkrun on Saturday but Sundays are slightly different. I have found a course that is just short of 10km and I am running loops of that course to not only get the miles into my legs but to get use to the boredom of running the same route over and over again. Dad hasn't got away with this either and I drag him out on these loops. Now enough about training lets move on to finding out more about myself and in weeks to come some of the people closest to me and the team at Jessie May. 

I have come up with a few standard questions that I will ask each person that I feature on here, I will also be answering these questions. I will be honest with my answer and I will make sure the others are to so you get a good insight in who these people are and how amazing they are! Hopefully there will also be some funny answers along the way as well! Right so here goes............

When you were little what did you also say you wanted to be when you grew up ? - I don't actually remember saying or knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was in nursery we were filmed for something called School Days (some of you may be old enough to remember this?!) on this video, which embarrassingly still exists and I believe it is also on YouTube, I was interviewed with two of my friends. The closest thing to saying what I wanted to be when i grew up happened during this interview, I said I wanted to be the green one on the football pitch. Now by this I can only guess is I meant the goal keeper. I don't know why I would say this as a few years later I started playing rugby and I have been hooked on the game ever since. I have just asked my mum if I said anything about what I wanted to be growing up and apparently I use to say that I wanted to use a hammer like my dad. My dad is a carpenter so that's where that came from, now if you know me I have no clue about DIY let alone being a carpenter so I am glad I didn't follow that course.

Do you have any claim to fame? - I have been an extra in the TV series Casualty and I have also appeared on Children in Need. This was in a charity rugby game where every one of the Bristol mini's and junior's teams played against the Bristol 1st team. 

Nursing - I trained to be a nurse over the bridge in Cardiff, I only put this Uni on my application as i had paid for five options. I got turned down by UWE straight away and no other Uni wanted me so it was lucky that I did apply to Cardiff. I graduated from Cardiff in 2015 so I have been a nurse for almost four years. My first job was at Bristol Children's Hospital in Intensive Care. I worked there for a year before moving to Jessie May, I have also wanted to work in the community and this was the perfect opportunity. I have been at Jessie May for almost three years now and I love every minute of my job, I can't see myself working anywhere else. The people and the families I work with and support are a true inspiration and I am proud to be a part of their lives.

Running -  I think I started running in events back in 2010 in the Bristol 10km, I did a few races over the next couple of years including the Silverstone half marathon before I stopped for a good few years. I got back into running when I heard about Parkrun which was probably about three or four years ago. Since then I have done a number of races ranging from 5km up to an ultra marathon (46 miles). I know this is going to sound strange but I'm not sure that I actually enjoy running, I see it as more of a challenge. I have been asked a lot recently why I decided to run a 24 hour race and if I'm honest its because I have seen others do it and I thought if they can do it then I must be able to. Running is a physical sport but a big element of it is a mental battle, my running tip to you is that you have to be positive and believe you can do it. There are times in races where I say to myself over and over again that you can do this or you've got this, I sometimes have to say it out loud to make myself believe it. Try it, it works!         


There you have it, that's  a sneak peak about me! hopefully you enjoyed it and are looking forward to hearing about the other people i feature on here. 

I am not going to be doing the blog posts weekly anymore, i will probably be posting every two weeks or so. Keep an eye out on the Jessie May Facebook page to see the latest blogs or if you have Instagram search jm_running_nurse. I post regularly about my running antics and i will also keep you updated about any new blog posts. 














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