On October 7, 2024 my mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and given a few weeks to live. Sadly she passed away on November 2, 2024 which has had a huge impact on my family and we are still shocked that she is no longer with us.
My mum was one in a million, she was very involved in her community in Timaru. She played golf, croquet and was on the committee, she was president of her garden club, was a member of the Alpine Garden club, she was involved with the RSA, as well as volunteering at South Canterbury Hospice at their cottage, shop, and making meals for patients, she was also a volunteer at their fundraising events.
She was very good with her hands, she did a lot of knitting and would always send care packs to her grandsons when they were at university, which contained all sorts of baking treats. Her other passion was her garden, and she had amazing rhododendron bushes that were in beautiful bloom at the time of her passing, which we used to place on her casket.
When asked how she’d like to be thought of by others, she said: “That I am a caring, generous person. Always willing to help others, give my time, compassionate, loving, and ready to pitch in with whatever needs to be done. Hardworking. A true and loyal friend. A loving grandmother to my grandsons. Always wanting the best for my family and helping them achieve their dreams any way I can.”
Since her passing I had been thinking I did not want her life to mean nothing and felt I needed to do something. After several months of contemplation I decided to run the Queenstown Marathon on November 15, 2025 in her honour. I chose this event because it was the last event my mum attended with me, in 2023, when it was my first ever marathon. As part of doing the marathon I decided to raise funds for the Ovarian Cancer Foundation and Hospice South Canterbury where my mum was a volunteer as well as a patient in her final days.
My nephews Luke and Zack along with their partners Emma and Emily joined me and did their first half marathon and my sister-in-law Suellen did the 10km walk with her friend Debbie.
I also did two warm up events, the Hanmer Half Marathon on May 3, 2025 and Race Tekapo on September 13, 2025.
Getting to the start line there were a few dramas, firstly my adored and beloved cat Morri went missing and turned up the night before my departure to Queenstown, very dehydrated and had to be rushed to the vet where we thought we might have had to put him down, thankfully he rallied, however it meant my partner David had to stay home to care for him.
On race day I stood for an hour in a cold 2 degrees with it raining off and on to catch a bus to the start, and the marathon starting gun going off before I was at the start line so I crossed the start line on my own and had no other runners to pace with.
Once I started I was moving OK and at a pace I was happy with, on the Arrowtown side it was hot and warm, so after the chilly wait in Queenstown I warmed up, to hit the Shotover bridge to a polar wind and it raining, hailing and snowing which was quite painful to the face and body getting hit by hail. Thankfully it passed quickly and I got onto a part of the trail that was sheltered from the wind and continued on my journey to Queenstown.
From the 32k mark it was a bit of a mental battle as the lower body started to tighten, my left IT band started to get grumpy and my right piriformis started to talk, so it was breaking the race down to get to the 37k mark and then I knew it was just 5,000 steps to the finish. All the time thinking I had to do this for Mum as I didn’t want to let her down.
Once I hit the gardens I knew I was on the home straight and just needed to get through the gardens and then I was in the town centre and the cheering crowd, which had come out even though it was a cool day, they were a great boost.
Once up the last little hill at the end it was a flying run to the finish in 4:44. It was a bit slower than I wanted to be but with the few curve balls that I had been thrown the days prior and the fun of the morning to get to the start I was pretty happy and the best news was that by the time I had crossed the line I had reached my goal of raising $5,000 for each charity so I was completely blown away and hoped my mum would be looking down feeling really proud of my efforts.
I owe a big thank you to my family and partners for taking part in the other distances and for achieving their goals, and for our support crew that supported us on the day getting us all to the start to catch the bus, waiting for us all to finish and having our gear that we needed once finished to refuel and to get warm. Also a huge thank you to all of those people that supported me in my journey of remembering my mum and helping me reaching my goal of being able to give $5,000 to each charity that I was supporting, I never thought when I started this journey that by running a total of 95.3k I would achieve such a feat, I thought if I raised half of that it would be a great achievement.
Again from the bottom of my heart I thank everyone for supporting me and these two amazing charities.
