When I was a teenager my mum signed up to walk part of the Belfast marathon. It was a pretty big goal for her and she trained hard, getting miles of walking under her belt.

The big day came, she donned her Lycra and trainers and headed for the starting line. And she smashed it. She was feeling the race day buzz so much that she went for the sprint finish. 

She was pretty chuffed with herself but she’s also incredibly modest and so didn’t really let on. Whenever anyone complimented her achievement she would quickly remind them that it was ‘just’ walking, and not the full marathon distance anyway. 

So the glory of the not full marathon walk quickly came and went. 

A few months later we were about to have our tea and the phone rang. Callers were usually ushered off the phone quickly at this time as it inevitably led to something boiling over or burning. But I knew something juicy was going down when I heard my mum exclaim ‘YOU’RE JOKING’ 

My Granny had called to report her sighting of a double decker bus with a photo of my mum’s sprint finish on the side of it. A DOUBLE DECKER BUS!!

Over the course of the next few weeks that photo was spotted on billboards, posters, booklets, and many more buses. My mum had become the face of the Belfast Marathon advertising campaign. 

Now this was well before the days of GDPR and so she’d had no idea that any of this was in the pipeline. And the thing is, she would NEVER EVER EVER have agreed to it. Not in a million years. She would have been much too worried about what ‘they’ would think - that she wasn’t an athlete, her cheeks were pretty rosy, her hair wasn’t done.

But you know what, it was inspirational stuff. I thought it was totally badass. I still do.