Run Britain days 95-98: From Annan to Creetown

Between the ages of 13 and 18, Lottie and I were very close. We got into all sorts of teenage mischief and had a lot of fun. When I went off to university and she went travelling, we drifted apart and throughout our 20s, our lives took us in separate directions.

I knew that Lottie hadn’t been very well when she was at uni, but I didn’t know how poorly she had been. And she didn’t know about my difficulties until I wrote about them on this website over the summer.

She was quick to reach out and offer her support for Run Britain. Support which stepped up a notch after I stayed with her in Brighton and she offered to join the team as off-road logistical support.

Run Britain has been wonderful in so many ways, but reconnecting with Lottie, forming our team and, together, championing better discussion about mental illness has been up there with the best of it.

Lottie drove her little hire car (christened Baby Jeep) up to Scotland to look after me for a week for this first section of Scotland. We stayed in a lovely hotel in Arran, where she showed off her recently acquired adventurous spirit in the kitchen by eating haggis for breakfast. She then accompanied me on all my daily runs, driving the baby jeep to a decent stopping point for lunch (ideally a castle), walking back to join me for a small section and then meeting me again at the finish.

She made me dinner, watched the Traitors with me and brought huge amounts of fun and energy to what has been quite a bleak and road-y first few days in Scotland. It also helped that we stayed in a fantastic holiday park, in a heavily-discounted cabin (discounted because of the ongoing building work on the site).

By the weekend, Lottie had been replaced for on the road support by her Dad, Simon, who has just finished his own training to be a volunteer Samaritan. On Friday evening, Simon joined me and Kat (my friend from uni who lives in Edinburgh and has come for another weekend of running) in watching the Traitors final. I love a random group hanging out together and this is definitely a winning combination.