Last year I ran a lot (for me) and by the end of 2021 I was extremely proud of my 500 miles. Mostly I ran 3 miles/5km and throughout the year I managed a couple of 6mile/10km runs and was ridiculously pleased with myself. A couple of months into the year I got it into my head that perhaps I should try for a 1000 miles. For reasons, I really can’t quite fathom, I thought it was a good idea. It might’ve been because I didn’t have a lot else on, the weather was cool and I seemed, without too much trouble, to have upped my regular runs to the longer ones. So, I thought averaging 3 x 6 miles a week was entirely manageable.
What I didn’t factor in was –
I really don’t like running in the heat and it was a wonderfully long hot summer. So for months I was having to trot around for an hour ‘glowing buckets’ and wondering why I decided to do such a crazy thing.
I missed a couple of weeks in August because of going on holiday and then missed most of September because of covid. Oh, and occasionally, I am busy baking and there’s no time to nip out for an hour or it snows and suddenly running is terrifying!
Finally and in my mind most importantly – it’s a lot of running! It has been difficult and relentless and I wish I’d never got the stupid 1000 miles into my head.
So as I sweated (sorry, glowed) and fussed I thought – well perhaps to motivate me I could ask people to donate some money to the Marsden and that might make it all feel worthwhile. Ah, but I’ve done that before and back in 2013 the decision to walk a marathon clearly led to my cancer progressing from stage 3 to 4 and when I tried again in 2016 to raise money by running my first 10k – my magical drugs caused such awful side effects I ended up being hospitalised and taken off the drug trial so fundraising is complicated. Magical thinking is even more complicated but that’s ok because I’m sure we all do it a little bit.
So, I put aside the thought of raising money but then in June I had the horror scan. The ‘brain blip’. that caused 4 weeks of total terror and again I thought….. it really would be good to raise some money for the Marsden because they are excellent and I, and many others, really need them. To reinforce that, my wonderful doctor went absolutely above and beyond and called me just over an hour after I had my follow-up scan to let me know that the ‘brain blip’ did actually appear to be just that and that I could breath again. He could’ve waited until my appointment two days later but he didn’t. He chased up the scan results the moment he could and saved me from a further two days of terror.
So again I thought I really would like to raise some money for the Marsden but I was far too spooked with the magical thinking and paranoia that committing to something that was still nearly 6 months away from being done was asking for trouble. So, I thought, I’ll wait for my last scan before the end of the year and if that’s ok I’ll set up a fundraising page and hopefully people can donate the cost of a pint or a coffee and that would make me feel better about the hideous running task I’d set myself and better still it’d help all us sick cancer-y people.
However, when I checked through the dates I realised that last scan was rather close to the end of the year. In fact, today is scan results day and to my utter joy and enormous relief I am happy to report that everything is wonderfully, brilliantly stable. The ‘brain blip’ is still present but it’s not doing anything so for now, it can stay as it’s reassuringly not behaving like cancer. So, not only do I get to head into Christmas with beautiful stable scan results but I’ve finally set up a fundraising page.
I know the timing is bloody awful – it’s close to Christmas, everything is expensive, the world is falling apart but no one needs to go wild – a tiny donation will be massively welcomed and The Marsden really is exceptional.
Plus – despite all the bloody hurdles (not literal- as that would be crazy) I’m nearly there. I’ve reached 986 miles and so with only 14 miles to go the end is very much in sight.
As I ran (or more realistically slipped and skidded) along the pavements yesterday I vowed to myself that my plan next year is to run much less! 1000 miles is too much for me – averaging nearly 20 miles a week is ridiculous. So next year I shall run less but I think I shall very much enjoy it more!
So if you can face it here’s a link to my fundraising page.
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/lucy-davis43
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