Regular eagle-eyed readers will notice that the ‘marathon’ has changed to a ‘half’ marathon. Yes, it’s true; I’ve resigned myself to do only the half marathon this year to raise money for Cancer Research UK. I’ve struggled with a leg injury the last couple of months. There are some mixed medical opinions about what it is; my experience is that medicine is an art rather than a science in many cases. And the injury, regardless of its origin, has prevented my training. It’s taken me a while to resign myself to this fact. And I’m glad I can at least do a half!
This is about acceptance. I need to listen to my body and respect what it’s capable of at the moment. Encouragingly I can do a half marathon relatively easily, requiring very little extra training other than my usually monthly hikes and daily commuting with foot power. The unknown will be the pain. For many days over the last 6 weeks I’ve had pain in my right leg a lot of the time even just sitting or standing still. Medical opinion is that walking a usual distance for me should not exacerbate it. The relentless training and unusually long distance would probably make it worse. The known difficulty is that it’s a night time walk, walking when normally I’d be thinking of going to sleep.
I must admit I do feel guilty fundraising as I’m only doing a half marathon now as opposed to a full. But if this is a charity that is important to you I’d appreciate the support.
