Thursday, September 8, 2011

Marathon musings & Sky 20

It was a rather dramatic sky last night. No glowing colours, just shades of grey.
I've been thinking about my previous marathons and what I should do next year. My first marathon was Loch Ness in October 2004 and that was such an emotional journey but it showed me that I had hidden strength, both physical and mental. I didn't write a blog then which is a shame as it was one heck of an experience. I looked back through some of my running photos and found London marathon 2010 whilst crocheting.
There have been so many different marathons - this year there's been London whilst knitting, Brighton and Salzburg. All quite different.
There was the Steyning Stinger. A tough off-roader with mud, gale-force winds and rain!
Then there was the Kent 50 miler. Did I really run 50 miles? Sometimes I can't believe it! I've run marathons on consecutive weekends, I completed 7 marathons in my 50th year, I've run 2 ultras of 35 miles and 52.4 miles, I've run 3 marathons whilst knitting and 1 whilst crocheting, and this year I'm running 4 marathons for my 54th year and trying to beat my marathon pb of 4:50 which I set at the London marathon in 2006. So what the heck do I do next? People have asked me why I still campaign for Alzheimer's Research after all these years. I know it may seem obsessive and I have already been made a Champion of the Alzheimer's Research Trust so could perhaps be forgiven for resting on my laurels. But the thing is, research is still vastly under-funded and although I know I've helped to raise awareness about the disease (when I first started out on this journey, no-one talked about dementia, except in hushed tones!) I still feel there is still more I must do. I think I need a cunning plan, in the words of Baldrick!

2 comments:

Linda said...

You truly are amazing. All your hard work has put Alzheimer's and dementia in the public eye and raised a lot of money. Great work. I can't wait to see what your next challenge will be.

Susie Hewer said...

Awwh, thanks Linda. You're too kind.