It is said that it is not the destination but the journey that matters and I think my reluctance to write a final post for my canrunwillrun blog is because the journey has been so amazing that I don’t want it end.

Officially, my destination was the finish line of the London Marathon 2016, which I crossed after 4 hours, 25 minutes and 30 seconds of running through London to music, cheers, chants and other wonders.

However, there were other ends to the journey, like doing my last ‘long run’ a few weeks before and then afterwards discovering that the £4,625.72 raised on my justgiving page for Bowel and Cancer Research is contributing to the incredible sum of £75,000 total raised that will be used to fund a PHD student for all three years, who will be trying to find a cure for Bowel Cancer.

The journey, though, has been so fulfilling and encouraging it almost dwarfs the results.

I learned that my body is amazing and can run non-stop for almost 4.5 hours without stopping (not even for a ‘comfort break’…yes, really!).

I learned that I can set a goal, work towards it and complete it, without giving up when it gets tough (maybe that’s a lesson I should have learned along time ago – but there you go!).

I learned that I have amazingly generous friends and family, not just very giving with their finances but also with their time, energy, encouragement and love.

I learned that my husband and children are far more patient than I think I would be, letting me disappear for hours on end and listening to me going on and on about nutrition, training, my goals and other (what I thought were) interesting snippets of information I gleaned about marathon running.

I learned that God really is always with me and is interested in everything I do – He really is!  On the morning of the race,  He gave me the wonderful scripture:

‘He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak’ (Isaiah 40:29)

It’s Him who made the whole thing possible in the first place and it was Him I prayed to in those difficult last few miles, quoting the scripture right back at Him!

This amazing adventure, this incredible journey is over now…and I feel a little sad but also extremely grateful.  I could run and I did run the London Marathon 2016!

Thank you for coming along with me and may God bless you in all your individual journeys now and in those adventures you have to come.

Previous Blog – Are we nearly there yet?

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Time flies between blog posts, yet somehow not when trying to put one foot in front of the other after 18 miles.  Little Fiona who still dwells inside this middle-aged body, was screaming ‘are we nearly there yet?’ last Sunday, my last long run (the Kingston Breakfast 20 mile).

The previous week, the Runners World training programme that I’ve been fairly successfully following, was scuppered by a rather lovely week climbing in Snowdonia.  I experienced a very different type of exercise, scrambling, mountain and the odd rock climb.  On the first day, my old climbing boots lost their soles and as I slid down some rather treacherous Welsh hills, I envisaged all my marathon training being scuppered by a twisted knee or ankle.  Praise God, my body survived…the battering taking place as I struggled on to mile 19 the following Sunday.

This was my longest race so far.  When I was first told I would have a place in the 2016 marathon around a year ago now, I had not run more than 5km.  I first did a Bushy Park parkrun in 2012, but continued with them very intermittently.  In September 2015 I began training for a half marathon and my first, the River Thames Half in October, was the first running race I had experienced.  There, I learned about toilet queues, how one’s brain gets mashed, and the fact that you can’t expect to walk normally once you’ve crossed the finishing line. Since then, I’ve plugged two other half marathons (the Hampton Half and the Surrey Half) and the Kingston Breakfast 20miler into my training programme.

Thanks to you, my lovely friends and family, the fundraising goal for Bowel and Cancer Research is now completely smashed, and two weeks today, God willing, I will have crossed the finishing line of the London Marathon 2016.

So yes, little Fiona, we really are nearly there!

Last Blog – Fundraising

Next Blog – Prologue

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After a couple of years of running and regularly getting injured, I decided that running wasn’t for me after all.

I wanted to stay fit though, and still eat cake, and kept hearing about something called ‘spinning’. Initially I judged the class as ‘pretty stupid’, why would you spend all that energy on a bike and not go anywhere? But then I tried it. I actually thought I was going to have a cardiac arrest, particularly when, feeling quite funny in the head, I spotted the warning sticker on the machine effectively saying ‘spinning can kill’! But I really liked the pedaling-to-the-beat-of-the-music bit and the great feeling afterwards – and my knees felt ok which was a plus.

After a few months of spinning and the sense that I was getting much stronger of leg and fitter of lung, the instructor – the amazing Charlotte Saunders – said she and a couple of colleagues were holding a run4it challenge. We were challenged to run 4 times a week for 20 minutes throughout June 2014. ‘I can do that!’ I thought to myself, and gave it a go. The spinning had strengthened me and my knees were no longer in agony every time I ran.

By mid-June I was thinking – ‘If I add swimming I could do a mini-triathlon!’  (Charlotte is an accomplished Triathlete) So I signed up to do the Women Only Triathlon at Dorney Lake on 13th July 2014– it was in aid of Breast Cancer Care and as my Auntie Fid died of breast cancer in 2004 it seemed quite fitting. I thoroughly enjoyed being a mini-triathlete (just 400m swim, 21.2km bike ride and 5km run), until I read an article proclaiming Triathlon as the new Mid-life Crisis sport for women!

This July, I did the next one up (750m swim, 31.8km bike ride and 7.5km run), this time in memory of Paula McIntosh, a dear friend of Clare (my sister-in-law) who had very suddenly been diagnosed and died of Breast Cancer earlier in the year. Paula had run a couple of half marathons to raise money for Bowel Cancer research when Clare was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer in 2013.

However, not one to get stuck in a rut (or wanting to be identified as someone having a mid-life crisis..), I began training in July with a friend who decided to enter the BRIC (British Rowing Indoor Championships), so I’m now an Ergo freak….and, guess what? This is now seen as the latest in cross-training for the middle-aged according to a recent article I read….Marvellous! I’m nothing if not consistently within my age-group….

Next Blog – The Fundraising Challenge

Last Blog – Injury – The bane of running

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For most of my adult life,  I’ve  thought all runners were completely mad.  Why would you do that to yourself, and everyone else?

I’d see them pounding the streets as I strolled around Embankment on my lunch break when I was a ‘working single girl’, they’d rush past as I meandered along the river pushing my newborn in the suburbs, I’d manoeuvre my toddlers expertly out of their way as they tried to dodge past us and I’d see the mums at the school gates turn up in lycra to dash off on a group run straight after drop off.

But mixed with the distaste, there was a persistent thought ‘I could do that – If I wanted to, I can put one foot in front of another…it’s not hard is it – just fast walking?’

I can’t pin-point exactly what prompted me to have a go at a walk, run, walk, four years ago at the age of 43 along the canal path…it probably co-incided with my parents deciding to buy a narrow boat, come to think of it, and without a dog, I needed an excuse to nose at some boats.  That, and having eaten too much cake and read too many Women’s Health magazines.

I gradually built up over a few weeks to run, walk, run and it felt nice….the endorphine rush was very nice and I lost a bit of weight, which meant more cake!…I was beginning to understand why you would do it – it’s fun! And then, very suddenly, I sustained my first injury and was back at square one:  Watching runners and thinking ‘Why would you do that to yourself?’

So my first lesson (a lesson I’ve been learning on and off for the last four years) – there’s a bit more to running (at least at my age) than just putting one foot in front of another as fast as I can.

Next blog – How I’m going to try and avoid injury!

Find out why I’m writing this and how to sponsor me.  And if you’re just feeling nosey….