3 generations raced for life

Today my 66 year old mum, my 37 year old self, my 6 year old daughter and I all did the 5K race for life in Hyde Park in temperatures of around 28-30°C. I also thought it would be a good idea to have my 8 month old baby daughter on my back (just in case I wasn’t already warm enough).

3 generations at the start

3 generations at the start

We were raring to go at the start, despite the heat. I couldn’t decide whether to push Baby C in the pushchair or whether to carry her, in the end I opted for a back carry. I’ve been carrying her in this Ergobaby carrier since her birth, but this is the first time I’ve used it as a back carrier. Oh My God! It is soooooooo comfortable, it was as if I was carrying a feather (she weighs around 7-8kg). Despite the heat and everything I had no issues with it (I also had an umbrella over her to protect her from the scorching sun). On the back of today I cannot recommend the Ergobaby carrier enough – I’ll be doing lots more back carrying from now on.

We lined up for the start and the emotions started to bubble to the surface.

Waiting to start

Waiting to start

I am incredibly lucky to have not been close to anyone who has had cancer; I have friends who have had it (both survived and not), family members who have had it, but not anyone I am especially close to. But today when I saw all the message of who people were running for I was choking up: women my age with “my husband” written on the back, countless messages for “Mum” which made me all the more grateful that I was there doing the race with my own, healthy mum. Not to mention the women who had lists on their backs of mums, aunts, sisters, nieces. It was heartbreaking.

Anyway, after a 35 minute wait we were off. Now I walk all the time – we don’t have a car and I’m not a big fan of sports – I walk everywhere that’ll take me less than an hour pretty much, and usually I have a pushchair or C in the baby carrier, so I thought it would be a walk in the park (see what I did there?!). But this was hard. It was roasting hot, by the first kilometre mark L was already asking if we were there yet and complaining of blisters (brought on from wearing trainers with no socks yesterday – her decision but mummy fail for not fighting it). By 2.5K she was threatening to sit down and not move again. We’d just passed Hubs and my dad with C’s pushchair so Mum called Dad and asked them to bring the pushchair round for L to sit in – just as well my 6 year old only weighs 18kg!

Mum then pushed L in the pushchair, while I carried C in the carrier to the 4.5K mark, when L got out and walked with us over the finishing line. (If you know her, don’t tell her you know this as I told her I wouldn’t tell anyone! But in all fairness Mum had a pedometer on and from walking to get to the start of the race we’d already done 4.5K).

It was hot, it was tiring (far more than I imagined), it was emotional (far more than I imagined), but I’m so glad I did it, and that we taught L about people who are worse off than her, and did our little bit to help them.

Happy to be finished

Happy to be finished

Our sponsorship page is still open if you would like to sponsor us, or alternatively why not sign up for next year?

*Disclosure: I’ve gushed about the Ergobaby carrier in this post but I have zero link to them, they have not sponsored me for this post, or provided me with the carrier, I just love it and wanted to share.

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7 Responses

  1. Wow, well done to you all! Having done it last week I know just how hard it can be. Can’t imagine how much harder with a baby on your back, albeit in a brilliant carrier!

    • Franglaise Mummy says:

      Thanks. I can’t imagine how you ran it in the heat! Walking it was bad enough.

  2. AtoZ Mummy says:

    Well done!! I think it’s lovely that all 3 generations did it together :)) Am off to check out the Ergobaby carrier as A is now far to heavy to carry in my Baby Bjorn 🙁

  3. Notmyyearoff says:

    Well done on your race for life. I did this a few years back and couldn’t move the next day.i can’t imagine what it must have been like to carry a baby too!!
    Notmyyearoff recently posted…Visiting The Petronas TowersMy Profile

    • Franglaise Mummy says:

      Well we only walked it, but it was pretty hard going, carrying C, encouraging L to keep walking and all that in the extreme heat of this summer! But all for a good cause 🙂

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