Welcome to our new blog! We hope to share our passion of running, inspire and encourage others and hopefully amuse and entertain with the day to day life of managing 5 totally crazy children!
I’ll start by telling you a little bit about us and how our passion for running developed. It all started back on 1st January 2018…
So I’m Heather. I was a single mum of my little boy Jack. I always wanted to get fitter and every time I saw someone running along the road or through the park, I always thought, “Why can’t I do that?”
So then one day in October 2017, I noticed a local lady had put a post on Facebook stating that she was starting a ‘Couch to 5K’ course in Huthwaite, where we used to live. My initial thought was “Yeah right! I won’t be running a 5K in 8 weeks!” but after speaking to her, she said I could bring Jack along which was perfect as finding childcare was difficult, so I signed up.
Jode was a brilliant mentor, she was patient, driven, funny, informative, everything you could want in a running coach. 8 weeks later, we graduated after running our first 5K. (It sort of helped that we were running to the pub for tea and cake, but we did it nonetheless!)
It was during the evenings at our running group that I learned about Parkrun. I’d never heard of it before, again I was quite doubtful about running 5K without Jode! But we registered, got our barcodes and headed down to Brierley Forest to check out what all the fuss was about. And I’ve never looked back.
We did a few Parkruns at Brierley Forest, before the opportunity came up to do one on New Years Day at Gedling Country Park. So off we went.
We’d never been to Gedling Country Park before, despite me growing up there, but it was always a pit back then so we were never allowed to play on it! Anyway, back to New Years Day…
We started our run, conquered the monster of a hill that Gedling boasts, when I noticed a guy (very hot, tall and handsome I’d like to add!) running with his 3 children, who were doing their very first Parkrun. I said to him “You’ve done well to get them 3 out of bed this morning,” knowing just getting one child up and out the door can be mission in itself at times. He responded with “They’ve got me out!” we had a laugh, then separated again as the run continued.
Throughout the run, we kept passing each other. His daughter, Alana, was itching to get ahead while his eldest son, Leo, was dragging behind. “I hate running! I hate park run! Can we stop? Do I have to? I’m not doing this again!” I’ve never head anything quite like it!
As we approached the finished, Charlie’s (I didn’t actually know his name at this point because I was too shy to ask!) youngest son Charlie Jr and my son Jack began to run off together towards the finish line, talking about what they had done for New Year’s the night before. They were already calling themselves friends! It was very sweet.
We finished the run, scanned our barcodes (Well, Charlie had left his and the kids in the car because he didn’t have a good woman to organise him, luckily for me :D) and went our separate ways, listening to his kids argue about who was sitting in the front on the way home! (An argument that I remember all too well from being a child myself!)
As soon as I left, I wish I’d have asked his name. Maybe even his number! It would have been lovely to have a friend, also with children, to do Parkruns with. I never could have imagined how things panned out from there…
We discovered each other on Facebook a week or so later, when a photo taken at Parkrun involving us all was posted online in the run report for New Years Day, and we both commented on it. From there we began to message each other daily, swapped numbers, and a beautiful romance began!
From there we have gone from strength to strength, both as a couple and as a family. We are no longer Heather & Jack, and Charlie, Alana, Leo & Charlie Jr… We are family.
We are Mum & Dad and 5 kids. (Charlie also has a goddaughter, Justine, who he was brought up as his own. She’s not into running as being a 15 year old teenager, other stuff is far more important!)
We love telling our story of how we met, and we love the fact we met doing something we both love and continue to do as a family.
So that about sums up our story of how our running journey began! We aim to write new blogs weekly, maybe 2-weekly (life with 5 children doesn’t always allow much down time!) so we’ll see how we get on!
Stay tuned for more updates, and as the kids say in their Fortnite-themed YouTube videos, don’t forget to subscribe!
The Cooks xx
CookFamilyRuns 