Hunsingore woman Jenny Jackson to run London Landmarks Half Marathon for Bereaved Children Support York
North Yorkshire woman Jenny Jackson is running a half marathon for Bereaved Children Support York. She talks to John Blow.
Jenny Jackson was never really a runner, especially after a horse riding accident seemed to put it out of the equation.
But after the death of her husband, Andrew, she has found running invaluable in her continuing recovery from the bereavement.
A driver hit Andrew near Boroughbridge while he was out cycling and the father-of-two died on May 10, 2020, aged 36.
In the aftermath, walking, then running, became coping tools for Jenny. She’s now 40 but aged 18 she broke her pelvis after a horse flipped back and landed on her, and was initially advised that she shouldn’t run.
On Sunday, though, she will participate in the London Landmarks Half Marathon, which takes in some of the capital’s most famous sights.
Though illness has recently set her training back, and she might have to walk in parts, Jenny says she is really motivated.
“Andrew and I cycled and walked a lot together, so (running) wasn't something I felt like I needed,” says Jenny, of Hunsingore, North Yorkshire.
“Then after he died, obviously it was hugely traumatic. It was COVID as well so I think that fed into my fear of wanting to speak to people, wanting to go out and just this feeling like I had to hide away.
“It was my dad who realised this wasn't really any good for me and he got me out walking. So we did loads of walking in those really early days. There's a four-mile circuit from the village where we live and we just used to do that, and sometimes two or three times a day, it was that therapeutic, really. We could talk, or we didn't talk, or whatever. So walking became a really big part of that recovery, I suppose, from that real kind of acute, traumatic phase.”
On the first anniversary of Andrew's death, Jenny and her father, Robert Brown, trekked the Yorkshire Wolds Way, almost 80 miles from Hessle to Filey.
“Andrew loved the sea, so it just all fitted really nicely,” she says.
In doing so, they raised £20,000 for Brake, the road safety charity, and the Injured Jockeys Fund, in memory of her husband’s love of horse racing.
She had not intended to fundraise ahead of the London Landmarks event but has decided to do it in aid of Bereaved Children Support York, which helped the family following Andrew’s death.
When Jenny, a clinical pharmacist, returned to work after her bereavement, she found that her mental health and grieving process suffered.
Searching for an outlet but no longer having the time for long walks, she discovered Junior Parkrun, the free child-friendly running events which take place on Sundays (unlike the main runs on Saturdays).
“Sunday is a really difficult day,” says Jenny. “It was always our family day. So it would be the day we'd go for a walk or cook a roast dinner, or have a barbecue, just the four of us. And Andrew was killed on a Sunday as well, so it just felt like such an overwhelming day. I thought, actually, I wonder if we go and do this Parkrun and that gives us a focus and a purpose for the day.”
It was, she says, “a bit of a disaster” but Henry, then about five, really took to it and “finished with a massive smile on his face,” says Jenny.
“There was me trying to run behind him, trying to carry Hattie, sweating and really not fit. I thought, ‘This could work for us, but I need to sort myself out and get a bit fitter here, if I have any chance of keeping up with him’.”
She had to build up slowly because of her past accident and did the Coach to 5k - and “haven't really looked back,” she says, as getting out for a run became time for herself.
“I remember texting my sister saying,’ I've just run 90 seconds in a row!’ I just couldn't believe it. I say it a lot, but Andrew wouldn't recognise me because I wasn't a runner. I know I've had a bit of a setback for the half marathon, but my plan obviously was to run the whole thing and not stop and the thought that I could potentially run for two and a half hours without stopping is insane, really.”
Jenny and Andrew, a chartered accountant, met in 2012 and married in 2016. Their children Henry and Hattie are now seven and five.
One benefit of publicity for the event is that it gives her the chance to talk about Andrew, says Jenny.
“He was amazing and funny. We laughed a lot. Just enjoyed each other's company. I mean, he did used to drive me mad and I definitely don't have rose-tinted spectacles because I remember how bonkers he used to drive me, but he was fiercely intelligent, really clever and really ambitious and really successful with his work.
"I see flashes of him in the children, and it's hard, but it also just makes me really proud that he's passed that on to them.
“He gave me the confidence to be me, and I feel like that's a bit of a legacy that I am determined to bring with me in this new life that he's not living in. I grew up in the 90s where there was a certain (idea of a) person of what we should all look like, and obviously not everybody fits that.
"I often never felt like I wasn’t good enough and he just made me realise that I am.”