The Star E-dition

Ashley Cain on grief, making his daughter proud and working out

ABI JACKSON

TACKLING an intensive endurance challenge isn’t just about the event itself. It’s the endless training and dedication required to even get to the start line.

“On a daily basis, I wake up at 4am,” says Ashley Cain, 31. “If you’re training for five hours a day, doing five hours of meetings, you’re planning these challenges and ways to connect with our community – it takes time.”

A former Coventry City footballer, who later found reality TV fame through MTV’S Ex On The Beach and The Challenge, Cain’s life revolves around The Azaylia Foundation, helping fight childhood cancer.

He co-founded the foundation in August 2021, with his ex Safiyya Vorajee, following the loss of their 8-month-old daughter Azaylia to acute myeloid leukaemia. Although no longer a couple, Cain and Vorajee remain close.

In April, he completed a 160km run to mark the first anniversary of Azaylia’s death. Now, as well as marking the foundation’s first year, this August would have been Azaylia’s second birthday and Cain has a series of fund-raising challenges planned.

He’s just completed the latest: running five marathons in five capital cities, across five countries in five days – crossing the finish line in London on Sunday, August 7, despite suffering a torn ankle ligament along the way. There are plans to climb Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, and cycle 2 740km across Europe later in the month.

Big goals. But none as big as the goal at the heart of it all. “Childhood cancer receives under 3% of cancer research funding, and cancer is the biggest killer of children in the UK. Our children are worth more than 3%,” says Cain.

“We’ve partnered with some really amazing institutions. We’re trying to improve the research, treatments, really get to the base of what’s going

to make a difference for these children and implement those things. It’s a very big goal, but we’re making very powerful steps already, purely because of the sheer passion and the community that’s behind us as well.”

Thousands of people have connected with Cain and Vorajee through their story, and they’re working closely with Birmingham Children’s Hospital. The foundation also funds individual cases, for children needing cancer treatments not available on the NHS.

“We want to try and provide that beacon of hope,” says Cain. “If you have a poorly child, whether you have an extra day, week, year, or you save them. Hope is everything.”

Cain, who has teamed up with Gym King as a brand ambassador, is deep in training mode when we speak. As an athlete, he’s no stranger to pushing his body to its limits.

“I made my daughter a promise, when she left me, that I’m going to take her around the world, extend her legacy. I feel it’s my duty now to try and help as much as I can.”

Cain’s focus is steadfast.

“And that’s something I’ve had so much more, in abundance, since I met my daughter,” he reasons.

“Having seen what she had to go through and how she woke up every single day with a smile on her face, still trying everything she could, I just thought, ‘I have no excuses anymore’. I need to make my daughter proud.”

He talks movingly about the precious time he had with Azaylia in hospital.

“Every single minute was a blessing. I slept on a stone-cold hospital floor for months, but I couldn’t have wished or hoped to be in a better place. I used to stay most nights in the hospital because my favourite time was the morning.

“Hence why I get up at 4am, I love the light. It gives me a magical kind of feeling. Night-time used to scare me so much because I never knew if I was going to wake up the next morning and my baby was going to be alive,” Cain says.

“In the hospital, I used to wake up, open the blinds, and I’d turn around and my little girl would be looking at me, smiling. I used to say, ‘Morning, baby’, and she’d get all excited. And I’d put music on and we’d dance.

“I think that’s why I get up so early now.” Cain breaks off and starts to cry. “I like to have as many hours of the daylight as I can. Night-time still scares me a little bit.”

He acknowledges his dedication to training has multiple layers.

“People call it training and working out; I call it counselling. A lot of people go and sit with a counsellor – I decided to get outside, running, on my bike, or swimming in fresh water.

“When I exert myself out there and put my body through a bit of physical work, physical pain, it takes a lot of that pain out of my head,” says Cain.

“And it helps me spiritually because I believe I’m out there with my daughter. I genuinely believe my daughter is in heaven, and out there, she has the best view of me.”

Knowing this is all to help other children and families, keeps him going too. But the pain is raw.

The eight months he shared with Azaylia was “the best time” of his life.

“Azaylia taught me so much. My life started again when she was born. I look at her now as my inspiration, my hero. Someone who taught me the most fundamental lessons in my life, having seen the love and power and inspiration she radiated,” Cain says.

Lifestyle

en-za

2022-08-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-13T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thestar.pressreader.com/article/281998971237406

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