I'm a knitting librarian-type who's training to be a programmer. All very sit-in-the-warm-on-backside type activities. Me and sport: no. Just no. A generally straight A student, I got my only F in school in sports - football to be precise. As I recall I got my F "for running off the pitch and away from the ball repeatedly."
So there I was, sitting about at Christmas, eating sweets and watching TV in the cosy warm family home. I spot a tweet from Lilith, something about, who fancies doing the Edinburgh Marathon Relay this summer? Summer. Warm. Ages away. Sure, why not? I'll join in I carelessly tweet.
Cut to cold, dark, raining January interval training around Glasgow's hilly west end. I'd been running on my terms on the treadmill once a week for months. The kind of I feel tired, let's walk a bit kind of training. Now I've jumped on the couch to 5k style interval training programs I'm realising that I never really pushed myself much at all. Trying to maintain running (or foot-stamping slow jogging, let's be honest!) for any length of time is proving extremely, extremely hard. I've never fully appreciated all the work that these 10K for charity types have gone through. It was so hard in fact, that I began to wonder whether I was really really bad at this, and maybe I'd made a big mistake.
It turns out that the beta-blockers I'm on for migraines are making things much harder for me. I am getting fitter, it's just that I rapidly experience extreme breathlessness. As soon as I walk it goes away. But as soon as I start running I'm gasping for survival again. So I have an additional challenge to overcome.
And really, isn't running for the MS Society Scotland all about trying to overcome extra odds? I'm running this, and refusing to give up, because my mother-in-law has MS. I've watched over the years as this illness has taken it's toll. I've watched her fight it as it slowly encroaches on her independence. I've watched how hard it has been on her and the whole family to go through this. Last year my husband and sister-in-law ran the Edinburgh 10K for the MS Society Scotland, and my brother-in-law and his friends did Tough Mudder. The MS Society Scotland needs all the money that they can get to beat this illness. They fund research into every aspect of MS: from cause and finding a cure, to helping those who are affected by it now. You can read more about where your money will be going here and donate on our page here
It is never far from the back of my mind that I am healthy, able and can choose to do this. Many, many people would love just to be able to give something like this a shot, and I should remember that I'm extremely lucky that I can choose to keep going or stop on my own terms when I'm panting and cursing inside at just how hard this all is.
So here I am now. Look at me go!
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