Meet #TeamPetals: Pete’s Story

Meet Pete…

Pete is running the TTP Cambridge Half Marathon this March for #TeamPetals for the second time, having received our specialist counselling following three heartbreaking losses: the stillbirth of his daughter Imogen in 2021 at 25 weeks, the miscarriage of Jesse in 2022 at 9 weeks, and a further miscarriage of Fiadh in March 2025 just days after running the Cambridge half for us.

Pete says:

“Me struggling through a couple of hours of running is a small discomfort compared to the heartache of baby loss, and if fundraising contributes to another family’s counselling when they experience the worst outcome from a pregnancy, then I’m willing to keep on running to try and give something back, and I will continue to run in my babies’ memory.”

We met with Pete to find out more about his journey, and learn how running and Petals Counselling have helped him to come to terms with his losses.

Read the interview below:

 

Pete, can you start by telling us about how you got into running?

I ran on and off since I was a teenager and, like a lot of people, got back into it in Lockdown after falling off the wagon for a couple of years. When we became pregnant in early 2021, I was still fairly actively running, then when the 20-week scan happened and there were questions without answers, there was suddenly a lot of confusion in our world. The running became a way of getting away from everything for half an hour.

Then, unfortunately, when the stillbirth occurred in October, I kind of fell off of the running again, even though I knew I needed to get out.

I just couldn’t face it because I had linked the two: that’s how I was dealing with the lead up to the loss and so I didn’t want to get back into it. Around Christmas and New Year I realised my health was in the pits. I’d become really unfit, eating and drinking too much of the wrong stuff, and thought, “I need to get back into this again.”

Throughout the next couple of years I was doing a few charity running challenges. I got injured and deferred Cambridge Half and the London Marathon in 2023, did London Marathon in 2024, then came back to do Cambridge with Petals in 2025. And I’ve maintained the running solidly ever since.

Now running is very much in the fabric of our life. We’re very fortunate to have our rainbow baby who’s two and a half and I’ve been taking him on runs with the buggy since he was about nine months old.

 

You ran the Cambridge Half with #TeamPetals last year. Can you tell us about your experience and why you’ve chosen to run this event again?

Cambridge 2025 was under an umbrella of anxiety, unfortunately, and I’d had the flu leading up to it as well. We’d had an early viability scan the week before, which had concerns and unanswered questions. We were told to come back the following Tuesday, and we found out that Tuesday that the pregnancy was lost.

It gave extra meaning to running for Petals that weekend, but it was such poor timing to be out there, running for a baby loss charity that has supported me in the past but feeling like I was back at square one again and needed that support again.

This time, I want to just enjoy it. I’m going to stop and give high fives to the cheer squad and take photos and just take it all in.

 

How did running help you following each of your losses?

Going through our Petals sessions, I realised to have experienced three losses in four years is a pretty disproportionate amount of struggle for anyone to deal with.

We’re in that stage of life, I suppose, when you’re early-mid 30s and you want these things to be happening now. When you stack one loss on top of the other it’s like, thank goodness I’ve got running there to go out when I don’t want to think about it. Or sometimes I do run just to think about it.

It’s something that motivates me too. When I have a struggle with a run, or I’m battling to push for a time and a result, I think, “This is temporary, you’ve dealt with worse, just get on with it.” Running is the least I can do compared to what other people, as well as us, have been through.

 

And how did Petals Counselling support you?

Petals became the space to say the things that I couldn’t say, or felt like I couldn’t say, to other people. The sessions gave me a sort of compartment to put those thoughts into so that I was able to put a pin in them. To just be able to discuss what happened with an impartial ear and have that space that just was just for me – it’s something that’s very personal and it very directly affects the woman, but as a man you don’t realise how it’s affected you until further down the line. The way it’s impacted how you feel, your relationship, how you deal with other things. It shortens your fuse to something going wrong.

 

What would you say to any Petals’ supporters considering running a half marathon, or any other event, with #TeamPetals?

I’d say, it’s two hours, or maybe three and a half hours… it’s not that tough. You don’t have to run the whole thing. You can walk it. There’s no rule that says ‘you can’t walk it, you can’t stop and take photos, you can’t take time to enjoy it.’

If you can just keep putting one foot in front of the other, before you know it you’ll have reached halfway. You’ll get to the finish – the buzz of finishing an event like that, whether it be for charity or just your own goals and desires, is really rewarding and really inspiring. Not just to others that might be watching you, but to yourself as well to think, “I’ve got through that. I can do another one, or I can refocus with other challenges in life.”

I think about the 13 babies that die every day in the UK. That’s 13 families that need help that day. There are so many people that Petals Charity has to turn away because they don’t have the resources. All us charity runners, if we add it up then we’re supporting another handful of families every year, every month, every day.

With Cambridge, it’s the most iconic half marathon to me. There are much smaller half marathons locally that you can do but Cambridge is the most iconic. And Petals made it easy to sign up with a charity place.

 

Tell us a little bit more about why you chose to fundraise for Petals.

I believe there is a lot of merit in talking therapies and counselling, in saying it out loud. I couldn’t really grasp what had happened with our first loss until I actually sat down, went through all those brochures and was like… counselling, actually, yes please.

There were other charities, Facebook Groups and things, but I needed something more direct and personal. I’m really grateful I’ve felt the benefit of Petals Counselling the first, second, and now the third time. Even just saying things out loud to a confidential stranger, the dark and nasty thoughts that you can’t say out loud to anyone else.

I can see it in people that I know, that I’m friends with, that I’m close to, that it is a confronting subject. I can tell that they don’t want to go there because they aren’t prepared for it – no slight on them, how could they be? But every one of those interactions is important because every time you talk about it, you minimise the way it might hit somebody the next time it comes out. Or the next occasion that they learn that, for example, somebody that they know used to work with had a baby loss, they might say something.

It still baffles me that from a national aspect it’s not something that’s part of a wider healthcare framework. It’s something that is hospital centric or postcode centric. I feel like it’s something that needs to continue to be sung about and seeing a public voice like Becky Adlington doing morning TV shows about it is great.

If running is how I can contribute to raising funds for the charity, hopefully making these things available for more and more couples and struggling individuals who don’t necessarily have a support network or relationship with their partner that they feel like they can talk about these things, I like the thought of that being available to as many people as it can be.

Any piece that I can put into the puzzle is important for me to do.

 

We are incredibly grateful to Pete for sharing his story and experience of running as part of his journey to process and accept the losses that he and his fiancée, Joanne, have been through.

If, like Pete, you would like to join #TeamPetals and fundraise to help us support even more bereaved parents following the heartbreak of baby loss, check out how you can get involved below: