Dynamic Dani Does it for the IPF
Dani Watts’ year is shaping up to be a great one.
As a personal trainer, she is building a list of clients at her home gym. She is sailing around Antigua this month (February). She’s in training for the London Marathon on 26th April. And in July she is getting married to her biggest fan, Peter, who is aiming to complete the marathon alongside her.
Dani, an RFU Injured Players Foundation client since being catastrophically injured playing in the second row for Rams in October 2017, has raised £4,000 for the IPF since putting up her marathon just giving page in the New Year. She wants to raise much more.
“I want to do this for the IPF because they have given me a future,” says Dani. “I met so many people in my spinal unit who had no support at all. I have been supported since day one by the IPF and by my rugby club.
“They have helped me to live an independent life. When you are lying there vulnerable and thinking the whole world is closing in on you the IPF are there. They opened my eyes to a life that still existed when I thought it didn’t. I met other injured players living independent lives and, thanks to the IPF, I’ve seen you can have a future and a career.
Stiltz Homelift
“They helped me to buy a house, with adaptations . I now have a home lift up to my bedroom which means I don’t have to go upstairs on my backside with the kids carrying my legs, or have Pete giving me a piggy back. “
The kids are Lillie Rose, aged nine, and eight-year-old Freddie. When Pete went down on one knee with the engagement ring at Christmas time, he had to do a rerun with Dani’s children on one knee beside him. Lillie Rose has claimed bridesmaid-of-honour and Freddie best boy for the wedding.
Says Dani: “My kids think it’s great that I’m competing in the marathon and I’m doing it partly because they used to have a very active mum and I want them to know and see that I’m still that person. Lillie says she is definitely going to cry when she sees me finish.”
She’ll be supported too by the players from the Rams Sirens women’s team. One of her second-row team mates ran the London Marathon for the IPF in 2018 and another player in 2019, the whole team completed the Reading Half Marathon.
“And now it’s my turn,” says Dani. “Pete is training and accompanying me in a RGK-sponsored wheelchair so that we are both on wheels.”
Having been with ten other wheelchair users on the ocean waves around Antigua with the Jubilee Sailing Trust, Dani and Peter had spent a weekend with the IPF at the Royal British Legion Battle Back Centre and the group she was there with often get together in Twickenham’s specially adapted IPF hospitality box to watch England matches. She also has her name on the list for an IPF ski trip in Andorra.
Activities provided by the IPF Engage programme says Dani “Make you realise that you can do things you never believed were possible when you were first injured.”
If you would like to help Dani ensure that the IPF’s fantastic work continues here’s her Just Giving link
