this is not a dress rehearsal folks

You only have one life so live it!! There is no point waiting for something to happen, waiting until....you retire, have enough money, until the right time comes along because you never know what is around the corner. 

Over the last few years people I have known  have been taken too soon; some through ill health, sudden catastrophe events or via tragedy. Equally I have close family and friends who have been given life limiting diagnosis's and are having to carry on living their lives.

After each tragic announcement I take stock, reflect on my life what do I enjoying, what is bringing me joy and what is brining me down. Because the saying is true life is too short and you never know when your time is going to be up or when you can no longer do what you once did.

You don’t want to reflect on your life and wish you had: laughed more, loved more, spent more time with loved ones, danced in the rain, sung your favourite song at karaoke, hung out and chilled with those you love. 

I encourage everyone to take stock; do more of what you love, reduce the time you spend on the things that don’t bring you joy. Try and find the balance between being healthy vs indulgent and if you struggle with being too indulgent then be active.

Learn to love yourself what ever shape you are in, your body is a wonderful powerful machine and there are many who are currently going through treatment who would wish to have the body you have.

When your time is up, no one is going to care that you worked those extra hours, or you had an empty washing/   ironing basket, a spotless house or not a wrinkle insight  what they are going to miss is you. Make them smile at the memories made together and they’ll take comfort in the fact you lived your life to the fullest!

Now go out let go of the anger, negativity as they only person they hurt is you.  Go and be around people you love,  make awesome memories and hold on to those things.

Just keep swimming

Following the marathon, with the next six months stretched and whilst we are waiting for summer to load I’m contemplating what to do with my next….. it’s true that marathon training really does consume you both physically and mentally, there is little time to think or do about anything else. 

This happens slowly and you don’t notice it happening, nearly every waking hour is taken up with thinking;

• about the route you will take, 
• the pace you will run, 
• have you got enough gels to get you though,
• will last night’s tea make and unpleasant reappearance where there are no facilities….
• do I have the energy to run again, 
• race day is T-minus x, 
• RACE DAY
• Finish line photos posted to the social media of your choice,
• retold the story about how the wheels fell off, or that you had an amazing race and yes you are pleased with your time!!

and then all of a sudden you have all this free time and mental capacity to do stuff….but you don’t know what to do with yourself. Personally, I’m not going to go on a 20 mile training run for shits and giggles if I ain’t got a marathon to do!  During my long runs, I’d dream about the stuff that could fill my day when not running, and now it is here I’m at a bit of a loss. 

So there was only one thing for it…sign up to a triathlon!  Which I have the North West Sprint Triathlon the end of September it’s a pool based Triathlon so (hopefully) there will be no getting out of the swim and bursting into tears! But what it does mean and with all this additional time I can finally get back in in the pool and back on my bike. 

So far it is week 3 of the new training plan and I’m keeping up my 2 early morning pool swims a week, it’s not easy and something I don’t enjoy that much, mainly because it is pure alone time with my thoughts…which is a scary place to be, because believe it or not I’m not very interesting. The strategy to keep me amused is to a) try not to imagine what those other weird floaty things are in the pool and b) remember what lap we are on.  Another good game is how many laps can I get done before other people join my lane Wednesday's record was 36.  But in the words of Dory “just keep swimming swimming”.

There has not been much in the way of bike training year other than spectating at the Potters Arf the other
week, so I need to up my game there but the awful summer weather hasn’t helped and my bike is need of some TLC maintenance to sort out the squeaking disc brakes.  Currently, my knowledge of how to sort this out has come from two YouTube clips and it looks easy enough what’s the worse that can happen...

Well I really enjoyed the majority of that..

Edinburgh has come and gone, all over in the blink of an eye! scary really after 16 weeks of training where every run felt tough, then slowly as the runs got longer they started to feel a bit easier and dare I say a little more enjoyable. Having said that I was really pleased to be done with the 2+ hour runs.

I had set my goals for Edinbrough which were twofold:

a) finish time with 4 at the start

b) still have the desire to put my trainers on and run again

To help me enjoy the run I had created an awesome music playlist, that I was really looking forward to listening too. It was an interesting mix of songs that I love both listening to very loud and singing along to in my car very badly! I'd purposely not listened to music too much in training and my long runs have mainly been listening to podcasts to distract me so listening to my mix was going to be a real treat.

Before my race, my training had really been turning a corner, with dropping around 10kgs and actually enjoying my running, my speed has started to pick up. So many people had started to question my seemingly soft target of a 4 something marathon.  

Did I achieve my two goals?

Goal 1: Finish time was 4:05 ✔

Goal2:  I really enjoyed the first 22 miles my songs where awesome, each one was a joy to listen to not quite singing out aloud but there was a lot of smiles, air guitars, air drumming and plenty of dancing hands. 

The weather had perked up which was brilliant as conditions at the start was awful, downpours and heavy drizzle then as the start got underway the rain dried up and it stayed dry for the entire run (despite the advanced weather warning!!) and finally the crowds where brilliant out in there droves clapping, cheering and telling everyone how brilliant they were.

But a marathon is 26.2 miles so what about the last bit….. last 4.5(!) miles were tough, it felt like I'd been handed a piano and to run into a headwind all the way to the finish!! 

There were a couple of walking breaks but I soon started running again. It helped to remind me that although this was tough, this was nothing compared with what Dad had to go through during his treatment.  When his last few rounds of radiotherapy were well and truly kicking his arse (excuse the Bowel Cancer pun), he continued to get himself to the hospital have his treatment because he knew that was what he needed to do to beat cancer.  

I also remembered telling him that his last few treatments were like the last 4 miles of the marathon, tough but you know you need to carry on because you don’t want to waste the first 22 miles…….

Eventually, I rounded the corner and the finish was in sight, halfway down the white runway to the finish I threw my hands in the air and even tried to smile a little!

I'd finished and yes I do want to run again, but just not marathons!