run bike swim beat cancer

I started off as a runner. After I had the boys I wanted to try and do some exercise and loose a bit of weight. Living out in the countryside, the easiest thing to do was to go out and walk / run. I was definitely not a natural runner; I was pretty useless at school cross country – I played hockey and badminton.

Somehow, after going to watch the Ben Nevis Hill Race, I was talked into entering it !! at this point I was running 3 miles, 3 times a week – so the Ben race was probably a bit ambitious !! however, I started doing some more running and enjoyed going up into the hills – the Sidlaws don’t really compare to Ben Nevis !

I did the Ben race and absolutely loved it – I was slow, but it was great fun and it really kick started my ‘proper’ running. After that I joined the Arbroath Footers and enjoyed the company and enjoyed getting faster.

I was really lucky to get a place at the London Marathon through my work, and I put some effort into training properly for it; being able to increase my distances was so motivating and I got really hooked. The race itself was awesome – the crowds and atmosphere are amazing – I cried going over Tower Bridge !! and I ran a great time 3.23 🙂

Working in Dundee made it tricky to get to the Arbroath sessions though, so I swopped to the Dundee Road Runners.

Obsessed is a pretty strong word, but I was definitely obsessed by running at this point – getting faster, winning things, lots of PBs, national medals, I ran for Scotland at the Masters Cross Country, 2 years in a row – its very addictive ! and I felt invincible.

But….I ended up with a stress fracture in my tibia, which also highlighted osteoporosis

Running vs nutrition balance was obviously (unintentionally) wrong.

However, the silver lining to that was I was encouraged (by a very persuasive person – who has subsequently talked me into all sorts of other adventures) to go along to the M3 tri club swimming while I was coming back from my stress fracture. And guess what ? I loved it. I got talked into doing a triathlon – and loved it !! (recurring theme here) and ended up doing a triathlon nearly every weekend for a whole summer season.

I haven’t looked back since then (apart from the cancer thing !). I’ve done lots of triathlons and I still love running and racing. I’ve done some mad, cool triathlons / events – Starman, the Strathpuffer, Craggy Island and some serious triathlons – the European Championship Standard in Estonia and the European Sprint in Dusseldorf, and lots of local triathlons / races :-))

I don’t want to say it out loud, but I still want to do an Ironman (long distance tri) (sorry Chris) – the voice inside my head is saying to do one when I move up into the 55 age category – plenty of time to recover and build up ???!