Given today is Mother’s Day, I wanted to write a little piece to all of our mum runners at team BR.
I myself have four children (plus a husband!) to feed, house, tidy up after, break up fights, mop up tears and comfort teenage anguish. And I know that a large percentage of team BR are also mums and suffer the same daily grind (read as joy if you want) as me.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of running park run with team BR member, Donna, who also has four little darlings, and we enjoyed a steady 5k chatting about how bloody hard parenting is. I’d woken up in a terrible mood but those thirty odd minutes with Donna really helped remind me why us mums need to make the effort to get out together and run. I’m not sure there is any better therapy then putting the world to rights during steady runs, and at Team BR we are all for that. If anyone ever needs a rant or rave one of us will always come join you on a run to give you that precious time away from your kids to rant, rave, cry, whatever (I’ve done it all- trust me!).
Equally, this morning was team BRs third run of the trail series. Loads of ladies rocked up at 8.30am (including poor Steve’s wife and mother to his children!) having opened our handprint cards and received our obligatory box of chocolates and flowers, ready to smash out a 5 mile race.
Being “mum” is a huge part of our identity, but for 5 miles today we reminded ourself that “runner” is also part of who we are. 5 miles of not wiping bottoms, or worrying about rules and boundaries and whether 5 hours of Nintendo switch is too much (totally fine in my view fyi). Today we went out and ran on Mother’s Day because in order to be the best mums we can be, we know that we need to be more than just mum. I certainly did not get a pb today (thanks to enjoying an early Mother’s Day tea yesterday), but I did return home feeling that bit less stressed and more happy.
At Team BR we celebrate being mums (and dads of course, but you get your day in June!!) and we are here to chat when you want to celebrate being a mum, when you want to share your frustration or worries about your kids, but also when you want to shrug off that label of “mum” and be seen for the amazing person you are despite your little darlings.
So here’s to us mums! I hope you all have a fabulous day doing whatever you have planned and I look forwards to our next run together to update you all on my latest family saga…as always.
Much love
Anna
