Ammalife: Why One Midwife is Running to Save Lives

Amie Wilson works in Birmingham as a midwife. But she is also getting ready for the Paris Marathon to raise cash for Ammalife – the medical charity that is backed by this website. Here’s her blog on those tough training days.

Amie’s Marathon Blog #1

Running a marathon has been an ambition of mine for a long time, and after many half marathons I always thought ‘next year for the big one’. But many ‘next years’ came and went.

Well,  that ‘next year’ is now just over a week away on the 15th April, and it all started over a breakfast conversation with a fellow clinician over a very unhealthy breakfast.

‘Let’s run the Paris marathon’ she said. My response should have been: ‘Are you mad…no way!’

But instead I replied: ‘Sure, why not, I’ll have the cheese and ham omelette’.

Always being a little impulsive I hadn’t thought of the strict training regime necessary, and the considerable amount of time required. What a shock to the system!

Doing a full time PhD, working as a midwife and being a very active trustee of the Ammalife charity, my time was already stretched to capacity. But as the saying goes… ‘The more we do, the more we can do’.

So since before Christmas my now tired legs and feet have been pounding the streets of the West Midlands…I have run through the wind, rain and winter snow, starting at 5am to ensure my running schedule would fit with an already hectic diary…. I even ran on Christmas and Boxing Day when I should have been slumped in front of Mary Poppins with a large glass on wine!

Luckily the weather has improved (minus today’s freak snow blizzard) which does make training easier.

The clocks going forward has extended the daylight hours to run in although I over estimated this HUGELY the other day and got stranded on the canal, not being able to find my way home. With no phone and being very stubborn, I decided to make my own way home another way, and the long 20 mile run I had been dreading turned into a 22 mile run with the final mile being the biggest hill I have even seen.

To add insult to injury I ran out of water at mile 7 and my normal fill up stop was closed!

Anyway with the hardest training behind me, now it’s time to carb load and sleep lots (no sadly that doesn’t include beer). I am fed up to the back teeth with pasta and rice, and my feet have never looked so disgusting in my entire life, and my legs feel like they should belong to someone four times my age.

BUT…my focus is on the finish line and the £999 target! We are £585 there….just a bit more to go!
I have given everything I have into training, and why?

Well, because I believe that safe birth is a right of every women, no woman should die while giving life to her child and women deserve to have good maternity care, and not only survive but be healthy enough to raise their families and see their children grow.

Ammalife is different from other charities in that it finds out the most effective ways to save lives, rather than fund projects that might work.

I am running to save mothers’ lives worldwide because I believe that every mother’s life is worth saving. Please support me in this challenge… huge thanks as well as blisters

Amie Wilson
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