Great Manchester Run is next on the cards after dropping several dress sizes

A GREAT Sankey mum has praised the benefits of running after taking up a new healthy lifestyle after difficult moments while pregnant Joanne Watson, of Liverpool Road, said she knew she had to do something after needing crutches from 10 weeks and a wheelchair from 20 weeks while pregnant with her second child.

She hopes her next incentive to keep going will be taking part in the Great Manchester Run to raise cash for Heart Runners after her dad, Robert Bate, had two heart attacks.

The 36-year-old said: “I never thought I was able to be slim as I was overweight for so many years.

“I joined the Slimming World group in Great Sankey and then after a David Lloyd course, took part in charity runs. They have always been for a charity that’s important to me including Cancer Research after losing a lot of relatives to cancer.”

The health visitor, whose husband Matt, aged 36, has also got the ‘running bug’, dropped from a 22 to 24 dress size to a size eight at her peak.

The mum to Isabelle, aged six and Sienna, four, added: “My family and friends were brilliant while I was pretty much immobile. It was amazing going from struggling in a wheelchair to achieving something like that.”