A teacher at a school in St Albans ran 60 laps of the school field to celebrate her upcoming 60th birthday and raise money for charity.
Carlie Thomas, who teaches psychology at Beaumont Schoole, completed the run on Wednesday, July 11 in aid of Cure Parkinson’s Trust and Music 24 - a dementia music therapy charity.
She was inspired to take on the challenge after her husband Simon, who has dementia and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 12 years ago, had a near-drowning accident while on holiday in Spain last October.
Carlie said: “It’s been a pretty traumatic year but it’s been pretty tough for the last 10 years or so. I really wanted to do something positive but also I wanted to celebrate by 60th birthday in a different way.
“I was a foster child and my twin sister and I were taken away from my parents before my second birthday, and when I was five I was hit by a car.
“I feel like I’ve had 54 years extra than I should have had and I’m just really grateful.”
Before her 60-lap run, Carlie had run a number of half marathons and completed the London Marathon for her 50th birthday, but had not had much practice since her husband’s accident.
She said: “It was long and it was hot but it wasn’t as bad as some of the other days. It was just great. My daughters and son and different colleagues came and walked part of it while I was running and cheered me on. There was a really good community feeling to it.
“Since the accident in October I have not done much exercise - I should have done a lot more! The last 20 laps were pretty hard.”
So far Carlie has raised nearly £2,000 for both charities. She chose Cure Parkinson’s Trust to help fund research into the disease, and Music 24 because of how the charity has helped her husband.
She said: “They still show up at the nursing home and do music with him. The lovely thing is for people like my husband, who are so intelligent - he is bilingual and we used to work in South America - he has had such a full life, and he was feeling he couldn’t do anything but the music therapy group was fantastic because they really gave him confidence again.
“It just really cheered him up.”
To donate to Carlie go to https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/carlie-thomas
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