IAN LUKER AND BABY ANI ROSE

Ian Luker took on a gruelling ultramarathon to raise funds in memory of his daughter Ani Rose, who sadly died in 2010 when his wife Helen was full term in her pregnancy.

Ian recalls: “One morning after getting up and showered, Helen never felt the baby moving which was very unusual.

“Ani had a pattern and this was definitely a change.

“We rang the Maternity Assessment Unit, got ready and went straight there.

“Following a few different tests and checks we were taken in to the room for a scan. We were told that there was no heartbeat and we had lost our baby.”

On November 26 2010, Helen delivered “our beautiful baby girl” Ani Rose Luker.

Twelve years later, Ian had been running a regular 5k route and started to get a bit faster. He bumped into former friends who were into ultramarathon running on the trails and went out on few longer runs with them.

Before long, he was hooked and it wasn’t long before he signed up to the Lyke Wake Challenge - a 40 mile crossing of the North Yorkshire Moors - which he ended up winning.

The lads he had started running with had previously mentioned an 80-mile run they were planning, but he couldn’t get his head around running for 80 miles.

He’d mentioned it to Helen, who now works at James Cook Hospital as a Maternity Care Assistant, and while they both agreed the distance was crazy, she said he should sign up for the run and raise funds for Our Hospitals Charity’s maternity bereavement fund.

A long journey which saw Ian build up his training regime and confidence began.

And when he found out the race was on the 26th of November – what would have been Ani’s 12th birthday –he finally decided: “That’s it, I’m in!”

“That gave me the willpower and determination to train and to finish this run,” he said.

“It didn’t matter what this run was going to have in store, there was no way I wasn’t going to finish it!”

At the time of writing, Ian had raised £34,500 and said he had been “blown away” by all the support received, including from his company’s charity committee which has made a very generous donation.

In terms of the need for the maternity bereavement suite, Ian explains ladies and families who have been given the devastating news they have lost their baby also deliver on the very same ward where other families are celebrating their new arrival.

“That is just not right,” he says.

Ian has continued to fundraise after the 80 mile run as donations were still coming in and will complete more gruelling challenges this year, including the Hardmoors Marathon Series, with 2024 events also starting to get booked up.

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