It Hurts
I quit smoking during the day with a smoke or two at night (I thought it was a good start), I was running 4.5km three to five times a week during my lunch hour and I was soon introduced to a 9.6km circuit that I found extremely difficult to finish. I couldn’t keep up with my colleagues and shuffled along in uncoordinated agony. I would start running with the other two, but I preferred to run (shuffle) on my own because i needed to battle on my own. My aging, badly treated body was hurting every day and I could have made this a reason to take a break, walk or just give up. I ignored the pain, the excuses piling up, reminded myself about the military training I’d endured and finished, friends serving overseas, the ones that did not return and others facing the “Black Dog” back home. There was nothing I could ever do to simulate the pain they lived or were living, so I ‘sucked it up’ and just kept moving forward asx they would. It is amazing how emotional running can be and what goes through my head when I’m hurting. The more I ran and the harder it was and the more wrongs I found about myself. These were things I probably needed to face, and I may have suppressed from the surface, all so that I could be a functional husband and dad.
My Breaking Point
It has never been my aim to be the best runner, but I still wanted to find my breaking point. I think somehow I’d found a way to punish myself in a positive way - if that makes sense. I had a weird guilt, maybe a survival guilt, in a seemingly ordinary life. I call these my demons - and for every kilometre I finished and the more it hurt me, the more I could see purpose in my life. As I suffered I felt closer to the people and life I was forced to leave.
Don’t Stop
Part of having Optic Neuritis is the scarring of the optic nerve and when my body heats up my right eye goes blurry again (uhthoff’s phenomena). It was a constant reminder, when I exercised, of a lingering condition, but it made me more determined. Determined to make a 50% chance of Multiple Sclerosis into ‘nothing can stop me!’.
Why Not?
I was conjured to attempt the Run Melbourne. A 21.1km half marathon and completely under prepared I gave it a go; it was my first organised run as an adult (late thirties). It took me over 2 hours to complete and my colleagues finished in a respectful 1 hour 40ish. I remember my feet going numb near the end because I’d made the rooky mistake of buying new runners for the occasion (never do that).
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