Jus is an active and valuable member of the Operation Move Community and Run Club; and she also runs to raise funds for Epilepsy Australia. Jus originally shared her story in Run Club and it is reprinted here with her permission.
In February 2012 (when our youngest was 18 months old) I saw this picture of myself in the school newsletter. I had thought that my body had bounced back a lot better than it really had and the photo was enough of a shock for me into doing something. I wasn’t *that* much overweight but felt uncomfortable within myself and wasn’t even fit enough to brush my teeth of a morning without feeling like I needed to sit down!!
I started walking with our youngest (now 7) in the pram after school drop off. Initially it was just from school to the post office and back (about a 1km round trip). Eventually the walks started to get longer, and I was needing something more so started a Couch to 5k podcast and began running in May 2012.
About a month later, our 25 year old niece passed away suddenly from SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epileptics) and running soon became my therapy… my way to cope with her loss. Two months after her death, I ran my first City2Surf in Sydney (something that had been on my bucket list since I was a child growing up in Sydney).
From there, I began raising money for Epilepsy Australia and my running very soon became about fundraising and increasing awareness of SUDEP. In total, my sister and myself have raised over $1,700 for Epilepsy Australia.
I’ve since run 6 half marathons, countless 10k races and have now completed my first ultra at UTA50! I love that, through running, I have met some wonderful, supportive women (both online and in real life) and that I can be such a positive influence on my girls.
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