Runner Profile: Dawn Gibson

Intro

I’m a Northerner, from West Yorkshire (so the best kind) but ended up in sunny Felixstowe after a girl’s holiday to Corfu, the summer my A levels ended, in a holiday romance with a lad from Ipswich. One marriage, two kids and a divorce later I decided to stay.

I have been dreading this nomination basically I’m not that interesting and don’t consider myself a real runner. I mean, I do my best and I haven’t died yet, so I suppose I am getting there. Anyway, here goes…

School days

Up until being about 16, I was (and before anyone says it, still am) short, overweight and could not run for toffee (now I run for cake!).

In primary school however, I was, with the help of my third leg Anita, my best friend at the time, the winner of the three-legged race every year in sports day. I am pretty sure not much of this was down to my sporting prowess (I pretty much got picked up and dragged along) but I’m taking it none the less. I was part of an amazing foursome on the rounders team, we always took the first base, fourth base, bowler and back stop positions and were unstoppable (for 9/10-year-olds). I also liked to play football, my position was what we called a ‘back liner’ (I am positive that this is a genuine position in the game) which involved standing near the goal line chatting up the goalie that we fancied at the time, happy days!

In high school, I didn’t really like PE other than the fact that it was a dossy lesson and a chance to mess about for an hour. I didn’t like hockey (too scared of getting hit by the sticks) and I was rubbish at athletics. I did quite enjoyed tennis, but netball was my thing and from year 9 upwards I played for the school team. I was never in defence or a shooter (too short) I was always wing attack, being below everyone else’s shoulder height, I could dart in between the tall ones and was surprisingly nippy. I did try and re-kindle my love for netball about 7 years ago but, after pulling both groins on my first session and having to walk backwards upstairs for about a week, I decided I am too old and gave it up as a bad job.

Cross country days at school were the worst for me, I was fat, I couldn’t run, I was always last back, and I always came in bright red, sweating like a pig and feeling like I was about to die, and that is how I stayed for the rest of the day!

I do have a claim of winning hurdles in year 8 sports day. There were three of us in the race, the girl in front (literally) fell at the last hurdle and the other girl tripped at the start but again, you’ve got to take the glory where you can right?!!

Towards the end of high school, I took control and worked on my weight, but it was always about dieting, not exercise and so was very up and down.

Life between then and now

I never knew what I wanted to do when I left school. I went to Manchester Uni to study Biology, mainly to buy myself some thinking time, but I hated it and left after the first term. I was there for the wrong reasons and the prospect of building up a student debt terrified me so at 19, I took my chances on the holiday romance and came to Felixstowe for a week to try and find a job, I got some temp work on day two and much to my family’s horror, never went home!

Since then, I have had several jobs including a dental nurse/radiographer, carer, and waitressing. I set up my own childminding business after my eldest was born and am proud to say I gained an ‘outstanding’ report from Ofsted. It was great when the kids were small, it worked around them and I could look after them myself while also earning money, but as they got older it was not working for me or them as much and so it was time for a change. Nine years ago, my marriage had ended, I was on my own with a 6 and an 8-year-old, and I decided I needed a career to support us and set myself up for my future, the one that I was now fully in control of.

I’ve always been a bit of a maths geek and so decided to try my hand at bookkeeping which quickly led to me landing a job as a trainee accountant. I’d applied for a position aimed at school leavers thinking they won’t want me, I’m too old, but to my surprise they did, and I found myself at 35, back at college part time (with a load of teenagers), working full time, trying to run a house and keep 2 kids alive. In January 2020, 5 years and 22 exams later I qualified as an ACCA Certified Accountant. It was tough but hopefully the kids are as proud of me as I am of myself.

Exercise and running

As an adult I have always enjoyed exercise classes, Zumba being my favorite and at one point I was doing 5-6 classes a week, but suddenly being on my own with young children this was no longer possible. In 2013/14 I decided I would walk myself fit and started to try and get in 10,000 steps a day. Realizing that this actually takes up quite a lot of time, I thought, running it would be quicker, after all how hard could it be? (I had clearly at this point forgotten my teenage years of cross country and thought it was a good idea!)

I started on the prom, running one lamp post, walking three with the idea of building it up from there, but I am quite impatient and wanted results quicker so after about two weeks I thought, bugger it, I’ll just run until I reach 5K or die, whichever comes first. Luckily, I hit the distance first, it wasn’t quick or pretty but to my surprise I was still alive. The buzz was amazing, who knew I’d be able to do that, and enjoy it. That was it, I was hooked.

(The machine that is) Hayley Coles offered to come running with me, which as you can imagine involved me chasing her, rather slowly and painfully for miles as she put me through some of the FRR training sessions that she had done, hills, steps, shingle, the whole lot, it was a love/hate relationship.

In 2018 she made me enter my first race, the Ipswich Twilight 10K in preparation for the Ipswich half that I had stupidly entered as part of a work team a few weeks later. She got me round in under 60 mins and then promptly signed up to do the half with me as I feared I would not make it round without her. On the day she used an ‘I have some gossip for you, but I’ll save it ‘til we reach mile 10’ technique to get me round those last 3 miles and I will be forever grateful to her for that distraction, highly recommended, it worked a treat.

I did the Great East half in 2019, again as part of a work team, I didn’t train properly and so it was a real struggle. I felt sick at the end and cried quite a lot. I vowed then I would never run another half, little did I know where life would take me.

Having been put off by the Great East, running took a back seat for a while until I finished my accountancy exams. I did the odd 5K and a few parkruns, just to keep my legs moving but it was a year later in lockdown before I got back into it again properly, I mean, there wasn’t much else to do.

My friend started running with me and we entered Asics London 10K in July 2021, she unfortunately suffered an injury 8 weeks before the race so we jeffed the course together despite her encouraging me to run off ahead. It was a great atmosphere and nice to run for the enjoyment rather than to get a good time. She really enjoyed it, but I am yet to get her running again.

Other activities I enjoy are roller skating and ice skating but not living close to an ice rink, ice skating is a hobby I don’t indulge in as often as I would like. The dream however is to become famous (for anything) and be invited onto dancing on ice, that would be my life complete.

I was very excited when Ipswich Skate Club recently started sessions in Felixstowe every week at Beach Street and so Wednesday night is now skate night clocking up anywhere between 9 and 15 miles a session.

FRR, races and cake to date

I joined the club in April 2021, knowing no one I was very nervous turning up to my first session, but everyone made me feel so welcome. I almost killed myself trying to keep up with Kate however joining is the best thing I have ever done. I have made some great friends and the support and encouragement from them, and the rest of the club is amazing. Running is now very much part of my social life.

My club debut was at the Framlingham 10K, it was hot and, not wanting to let the club down with what I knew to most would be a mediocre performance, the nerves were real. I ran with Kate and thought it would never end but seeing 6-point-something miles on my watch and some of the club members in the distance cheering us on, we dug deep and gave it our all for a sprint finish. Coming through the gap onto the field, I will never forget the disappointment we felt (or Kate’s face) when we realised we were not at the end, we still had to go around the field to cross the finish line. Note to self, don’t ever sprint until you can actually see the finish line!

Since then and in no particular order, I have done the Capel 5, 4 of the 6 cross country winter series (Framlingham, Woodbridge, Haverhill and Stowmarket), Tarpley 10m, Great Bentley Half, Ipswich Twilight 5K and 10K, Kirton 5 (Friday 5 series), Woodbridge 10K, 3 laps of One Lap to Ultra and I am signed up for the Coastal 10 in September. I have enjoyed and hated them all, to some degree in different ways, but the feeling of achievement when you cross the line, regardless of the distance run is fantastic and what keeps me going back for more.

Now most runners I speak to can recall the course details of each race they have run, the turns, the hills, the wind, the pace for each mile, how they felt on the different sections of the course and who they ran next to or overtook. Not me, (and this is where I don’t feel like I am a ‘proper’ runner), I don’t remember much if any of the technical details of each race, I remember each race by the after-party cake. There is also a great sense of achievement to be had being the last ones in the car park at the end of a race, eating.

After-party feasts have included cheese straws and lemon drizzle cake at Haverhill, and bakewell tart at the Woodbridge 10K, Tunis cake after parkrun, as well as bacon and egg mini muffins, coffee and walnut cake, cherry and coconut cake, earl grey tea loaf, carrot cake, cinnamon muffins, cornflake treacle tart and many more.

Another regular social event of my week is parkrun, which yes, also ends in a dip in the sea (weather permitting) and coffee and cake with some great friends that I have made through the club. I struggle to remember how I used to spend Saturday mornings.

I know I will never be the fastest runner (cake may be a contributing factor in this) and it is never going to be glamourous, but I give it my best and always find that last burst of energy for a sprint finish!

Next month

Thanks for reading, next month I nominate the man that is the reason I will never be a skinny runner, The Master Baker that is Darren Storey