He fuelled himself with a diet of Coke and white bread, sprinkled with sugar. I guess the nutritional advice that we have today was not readily available yet. My mother too, is a runner, although she will not admit it. She was a sub-2-hour half marathoner, but in those days, that made her a tail-ender, giving her the impression that she wasn’t very good. Today, if you run a sub-2 for 21.1km, you are above average! Anyway, at the age of 76, she still does a parkrun, and will come run the 5km of any road or trail race with me.
I always used to run 5km to 10km, but only ran my first marathon as a 40th birthday present to myself. My previous life saw me as a horse rider – that being my first love and passion – but I started running seriously after being ill for over two years. It was make or break: As long as I was running, I was alive, and life couldn’t be that bad. A person is nothing without good health, and that is something I will never take for granted ever again in my life. As the saying goes, you don’t realise the value of something until it’s gone. You do not realise the gift it is to be able to run, until you cannot. You do not realise the gift it is to be healthy, until you are not!
