Back to work this morning and I awoke, inevitably, 10 minutes before the alarm was due to go off at 0600. Jack heard me up and about and was waiting outside the bedroom door to greet me. It doesn’t take him long to settle back into his routine!
There was an incredible full moon, still beaming in the Western sky this morning and the day was just beginning to dawn in the East. It was cold and dry and if I wasn’t still feeling so full of cold I would have marched out with a spring in my step. As it was I managed a reasonably quick pace.
I heard recently that there can be a really danger to damaging the heart if it is exerted during or post virus. The old adage that you should work through it can actually cause more problems by damaging the heart, a condition sometimes also experienced by extreme athletes. I know that a fast pace wasn’t going to do that to me this morning – I just didn’t have the energy, but I do know that it was post-viral fatigue that exacerbated my father’s hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He died aged 57. I fully intend to live well beyond that.
So I have signed up for Cancer Research’s Race for Life again this year. I am not a natural runner, since damaging my knee whilst ski-ing 14 years ago, but I do enjoy it and need a challenge. I will train properly and pace myself accordingly for the big day on the 19th June. I will not do as I did last year and cycle the 25 miles from Leith to North Berwick 4 days before the race!
I was approached my Cancer Research UK to be a Media Volunteer as I was one of Edinburgh Holyrood’s top fund-raisers. This is entirely due to wonderful family and friends – both Emma’s and mine who generously sponsored me. I very nearly had to walk the 10k as I could barely run up Arthur’s Seat, due to the pain in my knee but when I thought about what Emma had had to endure with cancer, I persevered and finished in a respectable 57 minutes. I was further encouraged by my running buddy Michelle, without whom training and the race itself would not have been so much fun. Must see if she’s up for it this year.
So I hope I will raise at least £150 this year, but I will ask that all those people who are participating in their own Cancer – related fund raising events for their own reasons and personal challenges do not sponsor me.
Ready Steady Go! – a poem
Heartbeat sends adrenaline coursing through the veins
muscles twitch, tendons stretch, skin begins to heat.
Feet pound on tarmac streets, crowds line the route,
arms punching through the air, muscles now are taut.
Time racing, pace increasing, a finish line in sight
ecstatic end, distant cheering, tears streaming down:
a thumping broken heart. Be still my little One.
Comments