New Beginings

Hello again!  It’s been a while… years in fact!

As much as I loved writing my blog, it was one of those things I struggled to make time for.  Juggling a busy job, home life and trying to get out running didnt leave much spare time.

Since then, so much has changed.

I remember coming home from work one day, after a partciularly awful day and I cried for hours.  My job was stressful and emotive.  (I managed an early intervention service within local authority children’s services).  Over the last 10 years I worked hard in my career which meant working more and more hours and ultimately I never really switched off from work.  It’s not really the kind of work you can just ‘switch off’ from and forget about.  Of course my wonderful family, friends and running helped but I started to realise something wasn’t quite right.  That work / life balance thing people talk about didn’t really exist for me.  My work phone was permenantly glued to my hand.  The job was hard enough but the with local authority funding cuts, it felt impossible to do a good job and the right thing by the families we worked with.  Enough was enough.

So long story short, my husband Ryan and I thought long and hard about life and what we really wanted out of it.  Yes, we had good jobs, were financially stable, had a lovely home, 2 cars, holidays etc etc but that really isn’t everything.  Life is for living.

We shared our passion for trail running and the great outdoors and dreamed of jobs that could allow us more of what we loved. Enter Mike Julien from Tailwind Nutrition.  Those of you who know me, know I love Tailwind and have used it for many years. The brand is huge in th USA, UK and Asia but it occured to us there was a potential gap in the market in Europe, primarily France.  And there we have it Tailwind France was born.

From this initial idea and chat with Mike, we spent 18 months preparing for what was to come.  We both quit our jobs and put our house up for sale.  We were going all in.  And keeping everything crossed that this wasn’t the biggest mistake we’d ever make.  It was a bumpy ride, even to this point.  Our house sale has fallen through so many times it’s ridiculous.  Despite all that in July we packed up Vinnie the Vee Dub and we were off.  The plan was to travel in Vinnie for a few months before finding somewhere to live.

As I ‘m writing this blog, I’m looking out of our newly rented apartment at the Bossons Glacier and Mont Blanc and feel like the luckiest person in the world.  I’m not going to lie, it’s not easy.  I know you’re probably laughing thinking yeah right but seriously there are lots of uncertainties and we have no idea what the future holds! Financially it’s tough but my view is that if you really want something, you’ll do everything you can to make it work.

In between work and promoting Tailwind Nutrition France Ryan, Bernard the Beagle and I are exploring the absolutely stunning mountain trails, which are on our doorstep.  Running has never been such as pleasure as it is at the moment (well apart from my old granny knees since my recent race!  More about that later – I love to bang on about my races 🙂

Dream big and make things happen! Bye for now xx