The Fahy family – VHI Women’s Mini Marathon training diary

Let me introduce our family:

We are the Fahy family. My name is Michelle, our children are Erin and Cara (who are 8 & 5yrs old) and, along with my husband, we live in a beautiful town called Newcastle in Dublin. Newcastle is on the edge of the city, utterly beautiful and surrounded by farmland and nature. During Covid, we have enjoyed so much of our time exploring every nook and cranny of our town and have our favourite spots, people and animals here. We also have been caring for Nana Fahy, who is our cancer warrior and is fighting her third battle against the big C. She is our inspiration to begin this walk for VHI Women’s Mini Marathon this year. We do it for Nana and for ourselves, in the name of 2 charities; The Irish Cancer Society and A Lust For Life, both equally deserving and worthwhile.

I have done the Mini Marathon twice in my lifetime and am thrilled to include my children this year. We have been ‘training’ hard throughout the end of summer and autumn, including walking Glendalough and climbing the mountains, whizzing around on manual scooters to keep us moving and every day, working our muscles to ensure we are ready for our Ten Day Challenge!

Here are some snippets of how we’ve trained this week!

Sept 15: 40 minute solo walk while girls in school! When school ended, it was a VERY hot day so the girls did their ‘ training ‘ today with their friends on the grass outside our home, running up and down hills, cycling on bikes and generally having fun. All footsteps count and some days are just made for fun!

Sept 14: School run morning. Up and at ‘em! Up early, starting the footsteps early and almost doubling our foot fall with all of the walking we’re doing back and forth, for staggered drop-off’s and collections. The walk makes us smile every morning. Every step is worth this.

Sept 13: Another weekend jam-packed with movement. The weather has been glorious so we take full advantage, going to our local parks, admiring the changes afoot and searching for nature details. This time we even found a new spot to explore in a park we thought we knew inside out! You’re always learning…..

Sept 12: Today was an exploration day. Off to a familiar walking spot with lovely duck ponds and forests for the kids, noticing that all of the petting farms are closing down entirely and the animals out of reach. We miss our animal friends however look up to find them above us now, as we’ve made a ‘ Bird Sanctuary’ out our back garden this summer, so now know the names of a lot of the birdies flying overhead. We search for nests, birds and fairies and find quite a few.

Sept 11: Water calls today! Off to the seaside and Dun Laoghaire Harbour for a picnic and the all-important ice cream. The walk along the harbour walls was magnificent, with the sea air on our faces and sun at our backs. Considering today’s date, it was a thoughtful day. My mother’s side of the family lost a family member in 9/11. We all remember him in our own ways. The ice cream was declared “the best EVER”, as we had waited all summer for this particular cone from a special shop in the town and so the day was a success for our little one’s and our family. The sea and ice-cream; who doesn’t love that?!

The main event:

Well, it’s been a whirlwind of training in preparation for our Ten Days of Adventure here at the Fahy house and we’ve enjoyed every minute! Our days leading up to October passed in a blur of scooting on scooters and walking here, there and everywhere with the girls, making each day count and our muscles long and strong, getting used to the kilometeres we’ll be clocking up over the mini marathon period! Some days the sea calls to blow away some cobwebs, other days our village is explored with gusto – we even found blackberries last week and the girls and I picked them with their daddy and we had them for dessert! Memories to treasure.

Nana Fahy remains at the forefront of our minds throughout and she soldiers on, getting the most wonderful care and treatment under the team at St. James’ hospital in Dublin. She describes them as angels – when she is OUR angel in this journey, always shining a light and leading the way with her strength and courage. Fundraising-wise, I reached out to family, friends and neighbours and have been brought to tears with their generosity. It’s a wonderful feeling to know we are helping in some small way, by lifting our little feet every day.

So we march on! Today is day 4 of our mini marathon. On day 1, we scooted around our beautiful village, basking in the sunshine. Day 2 was a visit to Skerries and the glorious, blustery beach. Day 3 was a trip to my beloved Northside and a beach by Howth ( which we’ve always called “ The Hole in the Wall” beach but which I learned does have a real name – I love my mom and her stories! I got to my forties before I realised that fact! ). We are becoming quite the avid fans of watching kite-surfing! Today, my park, St. Anne’s for some exploring. I grew up across the road from there so delight in sharing it’s secret passages and wildlife with my daughters. Every day we return with nature’s treasures and do an art project and of course, send Nana Fahy a picture to show her how we did. For her, for us.

Getting out in nature every day has been magical and exactly what I hoped for our experience this year of the VHI Womens mini-marathon. Pure delight and feeling proud of our achievements, knowing we’re helping others along the way. It’s what it’s all about really. Congratulations to all of the participants this year! I hope you all have enjoyed it as much as we are!

We reached the finish line! Myself, Erin and Cara, along with a lot of help from daddy Paul finished the Mini Marathon this weekend. It’s been a trek and a half; some days easier than others however all very, very worth it.  From a spark of an idea months ago, it’s wonderful how grand our story became! We thoroughly enjoyed our experience and thank you for sharing it with us.  It’s been such an amazing journey ; we’ve had days walking in the rain looking for rainbows and jumping in puddles, other days by the canal with the girls on their scooters, soaked to the skin ( it IS October in Ireland after all! ) and always grinning at the end of every walk. The scenery may change but our determination never did and we delightedly completed our final day of adventures in the Botanic Gardens on Oct 10^th, hand-feeding squirrels. Honestly, I’ve LOVED being in the outdoors so much, as have the rest of the family and we will continue to get out during the darker months, searching for the bright parts. Needless to say, there were LOTS of treats and celebrations for a job well done afterwards!

To round off our weekend, our youngest daughter lost her first tooth in Nana Fahy’s house so there was fierce excitement all around! Another milestone and a little bit of fairy magic to boot! We’re beyond honoured to donate the proceedings of our efforts to our two charities and hope they do so much good. The world needs kindness in all forms right now . We keep the faith and keep looking up.

Thank you to all of our generous and ever-so-kind donors who gave us so much motivation and encouragement along the way; it has been such a pleasure to do this. And for our charities, we wish you the best of good luck going forward, with all of the wonderful, important works you do.

Yours kindly,
The Fahy Family.

You can donate to the Fahy family’s challenge right here.