we ran.

 Please excuse my tomato-face, messy hair, and the portaloo in the background - just see them as little pieces of evidence that I did actually run the half marathon!

A few months ago, John happened to mention to his parents that the Bristol Half Marathon would be happening in September. A short time later as I was about to go to bed, John said, 'my parents have signed up to the half marathon. I'm going to sign us up too.' Or something along those lines. Minutes after this conversation, the realisation dawned on me that I'd be running those wonderful 13.1 miles again & that it would come around all too soon.

While I haven't felt at the peak of my running game, there have been a few things that have helped me along the way. The first is John. He has had such a positive attitude towards training for the run, and has this wonderful way of embracing a challenge & all it holds, rather than running in the opposite direction. The second source of help came in the same form, but from two different places. I had just read this blog post by Elise, where she mentioned a book called Born to Run by Chris McDougall, when I got a text from my little brother, asking if I'd heard of Born to Run, and if I'd like to borrow a copy.

When I got my hands on Born to Run, I didn't want to put it down. I savoured the words and inspiration about how people can be ultrarunners, running 100 mile marathons in phenomenal times, without getting injured. Incredible. It's the kind of book where you want to write down quotes every other page. 

'Instead of cringing from fatigue, you embrace it. You refuse to let it go. You get to know it so well, you're not afraid of it anymore.' - Chris McDougall

I wanted to get to the stage where I could embrace fatigue, and keep thinking & feeling 'easy, light, smooth, fast' as I ran. I think the reality is that to get to this stage, a lot needs to happen, and while I knew that I would not get to this stage in the short time I had to train for the half marathon, I felt inspired, that if people can run 100 miles, I can surely run 13 miles without much complaint. 

Race day arrived, along with all of John's family - his brother had even flown in from Grenoble for the event! Surprisingly, there was sun (it's feeling a lot like Autumn around here), and a good amount of wind. I felt like I plodded through the 13.1 miles, going slow & steady. We all completed the race & I think some of us are more enthusiastic than others about running another one! John decided to raise money for Tearfund, and his fundraising came to the grand total of £575! (His work kindly contributed £250 towards the total - they very generously double the amount of money any of their employees raise - up to £250!)

Although in my mind, 13 miles should be a relatively easy distance to run (with training), when you compare it with 100 mile marathons, the stark reality of what can happen to our bodies when we put them through their paces came home to me yesterday. A good friend of mine sent a text with the tragic news that someone she knew had had heart attack & died during the half marathon. He was a young, fit & healthy man, newly-married, who ran regularly. While our bodies are capable of amazing things, this goes to show that life is so very fragile. My thoughts & prayers are with his family.