I did it, I ran the Half Marathon!

Last Sunday the early hours of the morning I think it was around 3am, I woke up in the night and decided I'd enter the Calgary Half Marathon. Later in the week my quad seized up and I'm like hmmmmmmm oh no! Luckily my friend who does triathlons recommended this sports body technician, calling her a physio or osteopath wouldn't fit... and anyway I found that my knee had a sheer going through it my ankle was out and turning in and my sacrum was 1.5inches higher on one side than the other. This was Thursday and this therapist said I was good to go for Sunday.

Having the reaction that you do when your body is re-aligned, I was like hmmmm not sure if I'm running. Anyway 5.30 on the morning of the run, the cramp had gone. (I did borrow Oatie's Eggs too).

So the run started at 7am, and I am not sure of the exact time I have got as they haven't published the chip times, but I believe it be between 2h12 to 2h16. I was on par to finish at 2h06, but on the last three miles where I usually would pick my pace up, my leg and ankle was feeling good and had the choice of going all out for it..... or finishing on a great time but in one piece. At which point I had to remind myself of my objective, to finish.... nothing more... I did do a 100m sprint at the end... and I didn't look up as the finish line was congested and a bit like playing frogger!

The funny bit was that I ran this Half 3 years ago, 3 days after we moved to Canada in fact and I couldn't remember my previous time. So I thought I ran it 8 minutes faster, as it turns out, I ran it around 20 minutes faster than 3 years ago.

I didn't have time to raise money for charity on this instance, however I ran it for a few reasons.

I ran for Oatie, this guy (my son) who pushes past the boundaries of everyday life everyday. He achieves what doctors say he would never achieve. He always works hard and is a boundary pusher. Every now and then I need to push the boundaries of achievement too. For me it keeps us in sync. The last time I ran it I didn't know he had CP he was 11 months old. This time I ran it, knowing he is physically impaired and well not training specifically for it and just going for it and beating the odds and funny enough beating my course PB time by around 20 minutes go to show what we can do.

I ran it to tell my body, yes your thyroid might be shot, and yes, your endocrine system is messed up.. and the whole throat lump thing..... however body, I can and I WILL. Which mirror's Oatie's philosophy.


I also ran it for me, for my soul and I find the whole experience rejuvenating.... I feel so ALIVE when I'm running that distance and to finish injury free was a total bonus especially how I was on Thursday! I can't believe that 20 minutes off my time too and I hadn't trained. I hadn't run more than 10km and the run was 21.1km.

In-between that, my eldest had his bowling party and I made him an R2D2 cake for his Starwars themed party. I wrote a post midst last week, that I haven't yet published but it's about our family's transition, probably the last straw of our family unit accepting Oatie's condition, not giving up but actually, not at all, more us, adjusting from an all able bodied family to one with physical impairment. I'll publish it later this week.

Love

Oatie's Mum
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