Reasons to be cheerful week 24 Race for Life

This week Michelle has vlogged her reasons to be cheerful so you can see and hear her telling us all about it! As for me I'm not that brave so I will stick to words and photographs! For me this week it's all about the Race for Life with only a few days to go... Here are the reasons it is making me cheerful:

1) Raising money for research

The main point of the events are to raise much needed funds to find cures for cancer. Having lost family members to varying types of cancer and seeing others battling their own illness it's an important cause for me. My daughter has previously run in memory of the Nanny who died before she was born. This year her father is battling cancer so she is even keener to do her bit. No doubt she will be coming round hassling asking friends and family for sponsorship or sending them the link to our Just Giving page. So pleased to be doing our little bit to help!

2) Quality girl time

We don't often get a lot of time to just be the two of us girls so running the event is a chance to spend time together. I had hoped we would manage some training runs together but that hasn't happened! Her preparation has consisted of digging out as much pink from her wardrobe as possible.. We have both got the new t-shirts though hers is a wee bit big and mine is a cosy fit:

We don't often wear matching clothes but this is a special occasion! I will have to get someone to take photos of us together on the day.

3) The big team

There is a big team of Aqua Pura bloggers running or walking at events across the country. It's a great feeling to be part of such a large group of women and girls (some fighting cancer themselves) that are prepared to go out and get sweaty for such a wonderful cause. We are all writing about our own experiences and reasons for taking part which are all very different. Hopefully between us all we raise a lot of money to find cures for this dreadful illness.

Shoulder to Shoulder and the Race for Life #S2S2D

It's my turn to host for Emma's blog hop whilst she is still unable to hug her family. She wants us to raise awareness of Race for Life to help in the fight against cancer. I am more than pleased to do so as this month my daughter and I will be taking part in our 3rd race for life thanks to Aqua Pura. 

We did our first race back in 2009 when my daughter was 6. This was to remember her Nanny Willoughby who died of cancer before my daughter was born. We did no training before heading off around Alexandra Park in Hastings and it turned out to be a hot day! My daughter got me jogging quite a lot of the way... surprised I survived the experience.

Two years ago we signed up to the Kendal event at the County Show ground. Again we did no training and my daughter shot off way too fast and then struggled to finish. We did manage to run the final stretch together though:

This time of course I have been training for running and have my first 10 k completed. So hopefully I should be able to run the course. I will just have to squeeze some training in for my daughter so that she doesn't burn out! She wants to do it again because this time her dad has cancer and she is doing everything she can to help find cures. His thyroid cancer has the potential to be hereditary too so hopefully neither of my children will have been passed the faulty gene.

If you haven't signed up yourself or are sponsoring anyone else then please add to our Just Giving page. Please remember that Emma and Sarah over at Mum of Three World are running the Race For Life in Cheltenham on Saturday 7th July. Please go across to Emma’s page here and Sarah’s page here to sponsor.  We are also arranging a collection for Emma in order to arrange an amazing surprise for her, so please email Vicky at vickywelton@hotmail.com if you would like to contribute. The wonderful blogger donating this will be announcing it soon.

In case you didn’t know, Emma is now at home but still can’t cuddle her lovely family but she is on count down to 5th June to cuddle her husband, Jon, next is her 6 year old daughter on 11th June and finally the one year old twins on, aptly, Fathers Day 16th June.