Birthdays come and birthdays go.
But a Loughgall school teacher will always remember turning 38, after setting herself the challenge of trying to run a mile for each of those years for a very worthy cause.
Given that it’s on her doorstep, Loughgall Country Park was the ideal location, as Stephanie Duke set her target of running 31 laps of the lake which lies at the heart of the County Armagh beauty spot.
That comes in at 62k and, although she did not finish what was a tremendously high target due to injury, she still did complete an incredible 54k before being forced to call it a day.
Stephanie is a daughter of Loughgall Church of Ireland minister, Rev Peter Smith, and he, mum Pauline – together with husband Matt and children, Phoebe (11) and two-year-old Rupert – were on hands to offer their support and cheer her on.
An English and Drama teacher at Lurgan Junior High School, she undertook the ‘laps of the lake’ to raise money for Reach Mentoring and is delighted by the response, having raised just shy of £1,000 at this stage.
Based in Lurgan and working with around 40 schools all over County Armagh and beyond, it is a fantastic charity which works with pupils to offer them the help they need when they need it most.
As Stephanie told Armagh I: “The idea behind it is it’s supporting pupils who just need somebody to talk to. In a sense it’s kind of like informal counselling, but it doesn’t have that same kind of scariness to it. It’s small groups and some one-to-one student/mentor type relationships. Pupils would see their mentor or be part of their little group once a week.
“ I worked for them a few years ago just after Covid and my dad, he volunteers as a mentor. They have a number of paid staff leading the different schools and the teams in the different schools and then they would have a lot of volunteers, people who would come in and give their time, maybe an hour a week, to help our young people who maybe are going through something, or maybe they’ve got behavioural difficulties in school and they just need somebody to chat to, to help them, to figure out what’s going on. It’s a great, great service.
“I have fundraised for them in the past as well. I have quite a personal connection to them so any time I do any sort of fundraising, Reach tend to be my top priority. Probably being a teacher – and having a lot of my students over the years benefit from the mentoring programme – I see first-hand how good it can be and how transformative it can be.”
Knowing that she wanted to undertake further fundraising and mark her 38th birthday in April as well, the big question for Stephanie was what could she possibly do?
And after careful consideration, the idea of running 38 miles in Loughgall Country Park suddenly came to her…
“I’m a bit of a sucker for a mad challenge,” Stephanie admitted. “ I’ve always had a real love of the mountains and I’ve done a number of hiking challenges. I thought, I don’t live particularly near the mountains, I have two kids, I’m a teacher, I’m busy, so I need to find something that is a wee bit more local, hence why I started running last year.
“I had done two 10k races. I’m two years away from my 40th birthday and always had in the back of my head a desire to do something a little bit crazy. I thought I need to sort of test the water a wee bit, let’s just give something a bit of a go.
“I have been training for a half marathon, but when I thought about the idea of maybe running miles for my birthday, and I have just recently moved out to Loughgall, so live quite close to the Country Park, I thought I could do something that’s really close to home so, if all goes really wrong, I can just nip home. If I get injured, I can just nip home. I can nip home to get changed.
“If it’s for charity, the more you do something a wee bit mad, I feel like you can justify asking people for money. I just thought I’ll give it a go. I’d no idea how far I would make it. I’d hoped to get close. I’d hoped to finish. I’d hoped to maybe finish it over two days.
A selfie in motion…Stephanie Duke completing her laps of the lake.
“The day itself, on the Saturday, had gone quite well and the weather was surprisingly nice, and hence, I thought, let’s do this, let’s give this a go. I had some of my family then come and run a little bit with me. A couple of my family went around on their bikes. My daughter and my husband and my wee two-year-old came and joined me for a few laps and tried to keep me motivated as best as possible.
“For the past year, I’d been training and running, two or three times a week. Mileage wise, I had been slowly building up and, I suppose, the reason I thought I could do something more long distance. I didn’t run. I wasn’t running super fast. I knew if I could plod quite steadily along, as long as nothing got particularly sore or I didn’t get injured, I knew mentally I’d probably be able to just keep going.
“I felt like I had a good level of fitness but still there was a wee bit of unknown. I think I’d run maybe 17k in one go before, so anything then past that was always going to be a little bit unknown, and I thought I’ll see how much resilience I have here.”
Stephanie had previously undertaken a 4 x 4 x 48 challenge a few years ago, also in aid of Reach Mentoring, but had never tackled anything of this distance.
She was, therefore, very much out of her comfort zone, but her have-a-go attitude and the charity itself drove her forward.
“I was not a runner at that stage and I decided, yes, I will do this for a good cause,” added Stephanie. “I think it worked out about 40 miles in total, but it was over 48 hours. I didn’t do the two middle-of-the-night runs; my family did those for me.
“I realised that I had done that on relatively little training; essentially it was the same distance, but just trying to do it all in the one go. A lot of my family asked, why did you not just do 38k for turning 38? That’s maybe more sensible, more wise, but again I thought, when you’re doing something for charity it’s good to try and really challenge yourself and do something a little bit more.
“Some people think maybe 38k would have been tricky enough, but clearly, as I say, I like to go that wee step further and it’s been a good talking point with the kids in school.”
Stephanie took to the task running in ‘blocks’, which allowed her to go home and take a break, change clothes and get something to eat to keep her going.
All had been going really well up until her final block. She had completed around 52 or 53k by then and knew something was just not right.
“I was feeling exhausted, the pace was a lot slower at that stage,” said Stephanie. “It was later on in the day, six or seven o’clock at night, and the legs were really feeling sore, but I was still able to keep going. I thought if I have to walk, that’s okay, I’ll walk and I’ll finish it walking. The next thing I just felt pain in the back of my left knee. Knowing that I have been training for a half marathon and I have it coming up, as soon as I felt it and it was really, really sore, even when I tried to walk, it was a very easy decision to make in that moment.
“I ran way more than I thought I probably would have. I felt like 50k was a real milestone and put me into that kind of ultra-marathon territory! In that moment, I thought, I do not want to do any permanent damage here. I don’t want to have myself really, really injured for the next few weeks. My mum actually was cycling around with me at the time and I said to her, I’ve done amazing. At that point, we’d surpassed the original target for money for Reach and past 50k, so I thought, right, let’s call it a day.”
While she may not have completed her self-set target, it was a brilliant achievement and all of Stephanie’s family and friends are so proud.
She certainly has not been deterred and, with the ‘Big 4-0’ coming up in two years time, perhaps she might be out and about again?
“Had I not been thinking ahead to my 40th, I probably would never done this now,” added Stephanie. “I feel like I was testing the water a little bit, just seeing could I physically, could I mentally, do something like this? And of course, to be able to raise money alongside, it helps you when things get tough, but also being able to do something good out of it as well. It’s been a win-win situation.
“It has definitely not put me off. I’d love to do something that combines maybe more trail running and my love of the hills, with even a longer challenge, something that’s multi-day. Loughgall Country Park, it’s a beautiful place. I felt it was a safe first option, because I live close by and my family are close by. I didn’t feel like I’d be isolated.
“Definitely there was a wee sense of comfort, but yes, I think the passion has been ignited a little more now for something even a wee bit more crazy in the future.”
Donations are still being accepted for Reach Mentoring and anyone who would like to give something, no matter how big or small, it would be gratefully received. To donate click the JustGiving link here.
