Mad March

My slightly mad March challenge was to walk more and run further. My goal was to run 100 miles throughout the month and to manage at least 10,000 steps a day.

Why?
Was I trying to raise some money? – No – I’ve already asked too often.

Was it about fitness? – A little bit…… I definitely feel better when I exercise. I have absolutely no control over my cancer (I have pills for that) but I can at least control my fitness. However, with my kettlebell sessions and my usual regular amount of running I am already pretty fit and probably don’t need to be doing any more.

Was it about the challenge? Again, a little bit. It wasn’t a massive challenge as all of it was pretty doable but oddly whilst the running 10k every other day has been relatively easy it was keeping up the steps on the in-between days that has made more of an impact. With nothing very much to do it’s hard to get 10,000+ steps in just being at home so I have been on a lot of weird and random walks. The boys have been surprised at the number of times I’ve just popped to the shops for something – several times a day….. rather than trying to cajole one of them to go. Plus I’ve been relying on the notoriously unreliable health app on my phone which I’m know under-measures – it thinks I only use 8700 steps to run my 10k…… which suggests some serious leaping and flying….so I’ve made it harder for myself. Plus as the days went on somehow 10,000 steps a day didn’t seem quite enough so I always aimed for more.

So what was it about? – Well, as always, cancer.
As I touched on before, maintaining my fitness is about control and I’ve become more obsessed with staying fit and strong since my diagnosis. But actually it’s much more than that – it was because I had another scan looming and that always makes me jittery and running and staying busy definitely helps with that. The scan, thank goodness, was fine and my cancer due to the magic pills remains reassuringly stable. However, this month, the jitteriness wasn’t just about the scan – it was about the fact that my friends, my ‘melanoma’ friends keep dying.

At the end of February I was stunned to hear the news that another of my long-term stage IV-ers who in theory are ‘living with’ rather than ‘dying of’ melanoma had died. I knew that her situation was precarious, it always is when the approved drugs stop working but through sheer tenaciousness she’d found a trial and because she always had before – I just assumed (hoped) it would buy her more time – she’d bounce back. I honestly haven’t managed to get my head around it. She and I had met quite a few times but mostly we’d just messaged a lot. She was absolutely amazing at staying in touch regardless of where she was at with her disease and for so long, despite differing circumstances, it felt like we were in the same boat. It feels utterly surreal that she’s no longer here and despite having booked my train tickets – no bit of me as really accepted that I’m going to her funeral on Monday.

Just as I was nearing the end of my mad month of too much walking and running I found out another one of ‘us’ had died. Another really lovely friend who couldn’t have been more educated about her disease and more determined to throw whatever she had to at it.Again, a truly lovely woman, someone I just assumed I’d see again once covid had settled down and the European conferences and workshops would start up again.

As I’ve said before in this blog having ‘melanoma’ friends’ is always going to be complicated but for me the positives far outweigh the negatives as the friendships in the end are worth the heartache. Plus I’m relieved that I wasn’t simply dumped by all my friends on diagnosis as that would’ve felt a little harsh!

So in order to ‘keep on keeping on’ or whatever it is I’m doing I have literally just kept on moving. I still feel incredibly sad but I feel physically strong and mentally reasonably robust all things considered. However, I’m also exhausted so whatever ridiculous challenge I set myself for April it’s going to involve far fewer steps!!

(I made it to 101 miles of running and averaged 13,700 steps a day by 31st March. Have opted for pretty pictures rather than strava/steps pics to accompany blog post)