"Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming.
All we can do is learn to swim" - Vicki Harrison
Before this year, I couldn't run more than a lamppost or two without needing to stop. Whether it was because my lungs hurt from my harsh breathing, or because I genuinely thought I would wet myself because of all the bouncing, I just truly believed I couldn't run.
In February I even applied to run 13.1 miles through the whole month for a beautiful medal, in hope that this might get me running properly.
It didn't; I completed it, a mile at a time over the course of the month, and I just didn't enjoy it. At. All.
I hung up my trainers and decided I just wasn't cut out to be a runner.
February soon melted away into March, the month my dad would finally find out whether his cancer had behaved itself since completing his Radiotherapy treatment. The days passed by so quickly, a blur of work and parenting whilst whispers of the Coronavirus had started floating around.
March the 11th soon rolled around. My dad finally had his meeting with his Oncologist regarding the CT scans he had 6 weeks earlier. I waited not-so-patiently for my mum and dad to come home. I remember sitting in the chair by the front door, getting ready to jump for joy. We all thought he was home free and clear.
But when the door opened and I saw the pain written across my dad's face, I knew.
My dad's cancer had spread... it was everywhere.
There's nothing that prepares you for the moment when the worst actually does happen. You might sit during the in-between moments, the no-mans-land of waiting, and ambush yourself with the worst possible scenarios in a vague attempt to prepare yourself. You might think the worst things but you can never truly be prepared for the worst when it comes when the worst takes you by the throat and squeezes every last ounce of oxygen from your body. We knew we were running out of time, but we had no idea just how quickly time would dissipate.
Weeks. Weeks were all we had with my dad. 4 weeks and 6 days to be exact.
The days leading up to my dad's death were catastrophic, as I'm sure many of you can empathize with. Covid-19 surged, the NHS buckled; and with it, so did my dad's hope of recovery.
The night of my dad's death, I was submerged into a black hole of endless anxiety. I could feel the palpitations taking over my whole body, the nausea rising at my throat, threatening to take over if I dared to try and nourish my body. Grief initially came and took me in its entirety; I didn't sleep, I didn't eat. All I could do was cry. I had a never-ending avalanche of adrenaline and anxiety cascading through my chest, and I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't want to handle it, I just wanted my dad to be alive.
There's only so many searches you can do on Google until you give up completely, and I had searched high and low, trying to suss this grief thing out. What could I do to help myself? To help my mum? To find my way through this thick forest of nothing?
You might think the worst things but you can never be prepared for the worst when it comes, when the worst takes you by the throat and squeezes every last ounce of oxygen from your body.
The day after my dad's departure from this planet and deep into Lockdown #1, I decided I just needed to run. I needed to do something with the perpetual whirlpool of anxiety that stopped me from being able to eat, sleep or even utter a single coherent sentence.
So I ran.
I ran 4 miles without stopping, and I cried for 3.9 of them, but I ran. My lungs hurt, my legs hurt, my skin screamed.
It didn't matter how much I ran, I just wanted to outrun the pain flooding my body. To outrun the thoughts in my head telling me I should have known, I should have done something more, anything.
Running lifted me away from my reality, it gave me space to process what had happened. When I ran, my dad was with me; he was laughing at me for trying to run, saying I'd completely lost the plot. Music carried me, well, Mr Blue Sky - ELO on repeat. Running was good, but I had to do more. I set up a Just Giving page in an attempt to raise money for Sarcoma UK - they deserve a whole blog for themselves so I'll put a pin it that discussion for another day. My aim was to run 100 miles by my birthday, and there were 48 days for me to figure out how the hell I was going to do that. Bear in mind I had only run 13.1 miles that entire year, and that took me a month to do.
My runs were 3 or 4 miles long each, one run being 10 miles long in the midday heat of May (you know, when we had summer for a week). Eventually, I did it, I ran 100 miles by the day before my birthday and I raised £2,500 for Sarcoma UK.
The support I received was incredible, people sent me voice notes to listen to whilst I ran, people checked in on me and sent me little gifts to keep me going. I felt like I had borrowed the strength from each of these people just to keep going, to keep pushing forward, propelling myself away from the black hole of grief and moving forwards through the uncertainty that has been 2020.
When I sit down now and reflect, it feels alien to me that I didn't enjoy running. That I had to force myself in February to just run the length of a lamppost or two. Whereas in stark contrast now I struggle to go a day without an hours worth of running.
I am aware my 'Why' is a very emotionally charged one, but the sense of peace and fulfilment I have found through running is something I could only have imagined before. Knowing my body is working, it's moving and it's so capable of running for long periods of time without ever giving up. It's an incredibly addictive feeling.
I would love to hear your 'Why' stories too.
Love always, A
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