To The Hell And Back

My thighs burn as my feet pound the pavement. Each step forward is a battle against the desire to quit. But I can’t stop now. I have less than a kilometre left to complete the first 10km run of my life. I switch the song playing on my headphones. I need something grittier to help me get to the end.

Without slowing down, I skip through songs on my running playlist until I find what I’m looking for.

Yes, I think as I hear the first beats of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. I carry on picking my feet up as I approach the 10km mark.

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If someone had told me eighteen months ago that I could one day run 10km, I would have scoffed. For years, I had not run.

Often, I'd had the best intentions. I even bought a running rucksack so I could run home from work, but it never proceeded further. I always found an excuse.

One day it would be too hot, then too cold, maybe it was too wet or too windy. Perhaps I was too tired or meeting a friend. Whatever the excuse, I sold and bought it.

Then, in March 2019, my life was turned upside down. I was diagnosed with womb cancer. It was at stage three and required a radical hysterectomy, chemo and radiotherapy to treat it.

At first I swallowed in misery and self-pity. I planned my own funeral and planned the heart-wrenching goodbyes I was going to say to my family and friends.

But then something snapped. I would not take this lying down. Cue tons of research and amongst the claims of various things being a miracle cure, I found articles and information that made sense.

I learnt that people who exercise regularly reduced the chances of the cancer returning. There were no percentages for womb cancer, but why should it be any different.

So, I dug out the running shoes, and the long road towards becoming a runner began.

At first, I could barely jog for a couple of minutes before I had to slow down to a walk. But day by day my strength increased and I could run further and faster. I trained through the summer and by the autumn I was easily running 5km.

But then along came radiotherapy. My oncologist told me one of the side-effects was fatigue. At first I was fine, but then it hit me. I had never felt anything like it.

It didn’t matter how much I rested, I still felt lethargic. And it wasn’t just physical. I felt like I spent most days enveloped in a thick fog. I had trouble focusing and remembering things.

I’d go to my morning radiotherapy session (I had 25 sessions over five weeks) and come home needing a nap. I'd wake up to have a bit of lunch and then needed another nap. There was no way I could keep up running.

Recovering from the radiotherapy and building up my energy levels took months. It wasn’t until the lockdown began in March that I picked it up again.

With the lockdown came strict rules on spending time outdoors. Exercise was still allowed, so to maintain my sanity I started running again. To my surprise and delight, I hadn’t regressed too much in the months when my running shoes collected dust in the cupboard.

And then, on the second of April, I completed my first 10km run. I was in agony for the last kilometre and ached for a few days after, but it was worth it.

In a year I had gone from a coach potato to running 10km. And more importantly, I had beaten cancer.

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I need my music when I run. This is the current playlist.