Dad running ultra-marathon for 'special angel'

A former professional rugby player is set to run an ultra-marathon in memory of his "angel" daughter who died suddenly at two years old.

Bristol Bears coach Glen Townson, who played for the team before his retirement, will run 44 miles from Ashton Gate to the Principality Stadium in Cardiff to deliver the match-day ball for the Bears v Bath game on Saturday.

He and three friends are raising money for the Amber Townson Foundation, set up in memory of his daughter Amber who died in August 2023 of Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC).

"When it initially happens, you're all over the place. You think 'Why you? How has this happened to us?'," Mr Townson told the BBC.

Amber Townson was just two when she died suddenly in her sleep

"I definitely feel like [preparing for] an endurance race allows you that thinking time and come to terms with it."

SUDC is the unexpected death of a child aged between one and 18 that remains unexplained, and affects about 40 children every year in the UK.

Mr Townson will run from Bristol to Cardiff in time to deliver a match-day ball on Saturday

'Just a normal day'

Amber, Mr Townson said, was a "cheeky" two-year-old, "a bit of an entertainer" and a "loving, caring little girl" who idolised her older sister.

Mr Townson said the day before she died was "just a normal day", and when she appeared to have slept later than usual the following morning, the family "thought nothing too much of it".

But when Mr Townson went in to wake her, he immediately realised something was wrong.

"She just wasn't responsive, she was so cold," he said.

Despite immediately carrying out cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and the further efforts of paramedics who rushed to the scene, Amber could not be revived.

"She wasn't ill. We hadn't recognised anything. And at that point in time it was just pure shock, really, of like 'what's going on?'," Mr Townson said.

The family set up the foundation in the hope of supporting other families facing similar tragic losses

The family were rushed to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, where they met with specialists to try to understand what could have happened to Amber.

"We were like 'well surely there has to be a cause, there has to be. She can't just die'," Mr Townson said.

The family had never heard of SUDC and had been shocked to find out one in four childhood deaths are counted with such a cause.

It was the confirmation of this, months after Amber's death, that led he and his wife Tara to set up the foundation with the aim of supporting other families as well as promoting research into similar deaths.

"It will never bring your child back, but it will hopefully maybe help parents come to terms with what it is," Mr Townson said.

While the diagnosis of SUDC had been hard to come to terms with, he explained it left room for an "element of hope" that perhaps there would one day be answers.

Mr Townson described his daughter as a "little special angel"

"We've had the option to keep tissue samples of Amber, so if in 10, 20 years time new developments happen they actually could run tests on those and have some more answers," he said.

Looking toward the run on Saturday, Mr Townson said he felt a "a combination of excitement and a little bit of nerves as well, just with the sheer scale of the challenge".

"I'm certainly not built for long distance running," he joked, but added the prospect of an ultra-marathon was dwarfed by what he and his family had already been through.

"Having this purpose of helping others has has helped us navigate our way through," he said.