A MONMOUTH mum ‘ran for the loo’ when she entered her first and only marathon last Sunday, 8th October.

However the loo she had in mind was the listed toilet facilities at the Savoy Theatre which needs a £30,000 upgrade and she set her heart at giving them a head start with their goal.

Louise Uttley has lost almost six stone in little over four years as she started to run, fitting it around her children’s activities and has kept on going.

“I’m not a member of any running club, I learnt to run in and around Monmouth challenging myself to push my limits further and further.”

She set her target at £1,000 but smashed that quite convincingly when she hit the £2,000 mark last weekend.

With £1,610 raised through her just giving page and paper donations of £665 already in, Louise still has the donations at the Chop Shop, the Savoy and at the Square (in Agincourt Square) to add in.

Louise chose the Yorkshire Plus Net Marathon in York to tackle and as she reached the start line she felt very nervous and stunned.

She said: “The atmosphere was amazing, people shouting at friends they realised are there too, others shouting to squeeze past and reach team mates, those sipping water, warming up, pondering, contemplating and those like me there yet still not quite knowing what to expect”.

Suddenly feeling unsure emotionally, the adrenaline kicked: “I wanted to cry, laugh, shout, sing, be silent, reflect, accept.  There was so much going on then I did it. That step over the start line.  The beep that told me I’d started and it all just melted away.”

“I was here. I was running. I was putting the cherry on the top of my very personal, incredible journey spanning four, almost five years.  Slimming down, learning to run, enjoying running and ending on top of the world to start the hardest part.  The ending of this section of my journey yet this is the beginning of the next chapter of the same journey.”

There were a couple of hiccups including giving her breakfast to the bush at mile seven and cramp to work through later in the day.

She managed to meet ‘Horse-Man’ coming out of the loo and they ran past and with each other regularly from there on in.

Around the 22mile mark he admitted he was coughing blood so Louise walked with him to stretch the cramp she was suffering and to stayed with him to get help.

She thought her fundraising efforts were great, but talking to him, she found out he’d raised over eleven thousand pounds undertaking a variety of challenges each month including sky diving and this marathon!

“In the last couple of miles I was really tested, physically, I had had enough.  I wanted to stop.  I’d struggled and I knew I hadn’t ran as fast as I wanted to. The flag came up showing mile 25 and that was the push I needed.  

“I was even more determined than before to finish.  I knew I had over £1,400 on the just giving page and I knew I had £620 on paper so I simply couldn’t let anyone supporting me nor myself down.  

“My determination set me to finish on a high and as I saw our boys near that all-important finish line and my husband David just beyond, the only way to cement my epic journeys end was to sprint finish, aching legs or not.”

Louise is still accepting donations, visit justgiving.com/fundraising/louise-uttley1 to contribute.