My Dad and Marathon Plans (Part 3)

A  few of the staff at work always participated in the annual City to Surf, 12 km run, understood my loss and saw my pain. They urged me to join them in the race. This was the perfect path for me. I could put two feet in front of one another and keep going straight – surely?

So I turned to running. As I started to run, small distances and slowly at first, I would find that at first hours and then days would go by that I would not be thinking of Winston. This was good for me!

Slowly, I started to get fitter and quicker and began to increase the distances and decrease the times. I decided that I needed some help and joined the Mind, Body and Soul gym on
Canning Highway to be a part of their running program.

After a couple of months, I had gone from being able to do an easy four to five km run to the required 12 km’s for the City to Surf.

In August last year, I completed the City to Surf in a respectable time of 1 hour and now I was hooked. You must be starting to get the picture by now – this crazy woman, who can’t sit still and keeps on pushing for more!

Missed the hour by a whisker

The sense of accomplishment in finishing the City to Surf was wonderful and Winston was now becoming a sad but wonderful memory. I was hungry for the next challenge and this bizarre niggling idea of running a marathon began to creep into my thoughts. The logic was, “if I can go from zero to 12, how hard could another 30 kms be?” Not only that, but if I was going to go all out and go for the big 4 – 2, then why not do it in New York!!

I have always had the belief that there are people out there that chase their dreams and go after and obtain exactly what they want out of life. And if there are those people out there why can’t I be one of them?

Ok, so setting aside the minor issue of the extra 30 km’s, how was I going to get a place in the marathon and get to New York.

Setting aside these minor obstacles, I began to do a bit of research about what was involved in training for a marathon and started to learn about the rigorous physical and nutritional program that I would need to get into.

The nutrition thing was going to be the hardest. You see, I am Culinary Challenged. My oven at home is used for storage and  I can lay claim to in fact exploding a chicken I was trying to roast.

Little did I know, this was going to be a minor issue in the bigger scheme of things. It was at about this time, that my father was diagnosed with cancer and was required to undergo surgery followed by a treatment plan and continual monitoring and check ups.

All marathon plans were but on the back burner as my role now was to care for my father and support him through his illness. This did not sit too well with my dad who enquired as to whether I had been diagnosed with cancer and when I replied that I had not, he explained that I then had no excuse not to continue with my training.

My father had also been a keen runner and realising that while his health did not allow him to continue to run, mine did and I had no excuses. So I got back to pounding the pavement.

My dad was one of the really lucky ones and a treatment plan was available for the cancer he was diagnosed with and he is now well. However during the time of his surgery and follow up treatment I began to appreciate the doctors and nurses who spend their lives making our loved ones well.

Now, everything fell into place. I wanted to do something not just for me but that made a difference, a real difference in the world.

I made contact with The Cure Cancer Australia Foundation, who fund young and innovative Australian researchers seeking a cure for cancer. The more cancer cure research undertaken, the more people can be on the winning side of the battle against cancer.

Stayed tuned ... ... ...

Dad and I at Christmas, hence the pudding hats