Mum on the run (From The Northern Echo)

Mum on the run

1:14pm Wednesday 14th April 2010 in

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Spring is a great time to get up and running. A busy motherof- two from Stockton tells Lucy Richardson how pounding the lanes around her home is an important part of her life.

JO Johnson has a spring in her step after rekindling her love of running after having children.

Not only does the sport keep her feeling and looking good, but it also allows her to indulge in a glass of wine or two with girlfriends at her favourite pub.

As a farmer’s daughter, the 36- year-old has always adored fresh air and feeling at one with nature. At school she was a keen hockey player and into athletics before taking up skiing while at Stirling University.

Her passion for running was not ignited until she graduated and returned home to Stockton, looking for a cheap way to keep in shape. After a friend coaxed her into training for the Great North Run, she was hooked and started to rely on pounding the streets to help her feel uplifted.

When she became pregnant with her eldest son, Jo switched sports to swimming. Then she discovered that she was expecting a second child, when he was just seven months old.

“When I found out that I was pregnant again, I hadn’t got my figure back and I was still breast-feeding.

It wasn’t until my youngest was about 18 months old that I got back into running. I’d wanted to do it for ages as I had really missed it.

“I was sitting in my local pub, the Masham, talking about New Year’s resolutions when a good friend, Rachel Ripley, suggested that, as she was a novice, we should go running together. We did a mile, but had to stop and walk three times. I felt really demoralised and I wondered how I had let myself get so unfit. Within three months we were able to run three miles.”

They now cover between ten and 12 miles per week in three half-hour stints, which has helped the pair shift their stubborn baby weight.

“We can go to the pub now and not worry about having a bag of crisps, because we don’t have to put the effort into dieting,” she says. “You get addicted to the feelgood factor.

Jo also enjoys running on her own around the leafy streets of Hartburn, in Stockton. “When I’m alone I put my iPod on and sing away, but with Rachel we chat all the way round,” she says.

Jo is an English and music teacher and qualified childminder and says running is a sport that fits nicely into her life with husband Craig and sons Tom, four, and Jacob, three. “It’s free, there’s no need to travel to the gym, it’s right on your doorstep. The only thing you need is a good pair of trainers,” she says. “It makes you feel free.

It’s just lovely.”