WARRIOR
Laura Potter
Laura Potter is a keen runner from the Lake District. Having found a love for the trails, her racing dreams were dashed when she was diagnosed with a heart condition. But it didn't mean the end of her running
Words: Rachel Ifans
IT TAKES THE SAME AMOUNT OF STRENGTH TO RUN A FEW MILES WITH A CHRONIC ILLNESS AS IT DOES TO RUN A MARATHON!
Laura Potter’s running journey started with some inov-8 shoes… well, the promise of a pair, at least. Five or so years ago, Laura, from the Lake District, found herself in a bit of a rut; she was mum to two young children and, while loving motherhood, found herself needing something in her life that was just hers.
Laura was brought up in the Lakes by active outdoorsy parents who loved nothing more than dragging their three kids up and down fells for fun. Laura remembers: “We hiked all of the Lake District fells as a family project when we were younger. My dad was a keen runner and we were brought up running. We’d do kiddies’ fell races when we were little and then it increased as we got older.”
And even when she was young, she remembers the boost she got from running. She says: “I think it was sometimes a bit of a battle for my parents to get us all out there but it was always one of those things where, once we’d done it, we felt that sense of achievement and that we’d done something really good.”
So, it wasn’t a massive surprise, when she told her parents how she was feeling and that she needed something to do for herself, that running came up in the conversation. She smiles: “My dad said to me, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, if you do this race with me, I’ll buy you a pair of inov-8 shoes’. He said that they were the best shoes you could get so that sort of pushed me on as I had an incentive!”