The Walker With Heart

It was a bad start... My Garmin was still in walk mode, rather than run mode... It was a bad (for me) weather day... The scheduled rain didn't turn up until after I'd finished, and it was warm and sunny... Though unlike London there was a breeze, a nice gentle one blowing us along the promenade... I had no expectations of a time, I had no desire to break myself and in many ways had put this is in the "long training run" box for the Ultra next month.  I'd said to a mate that given the hills I'd treat it like a fell run on tarmac and that approach worked.  If it was hill and I was going slowly I walked up it.  Around that I tried to keep my 900m run / 100m walk approach going. The course... ahh the course... Through a World Heritage site, around the Cavern Quarter, past the cultural quarter as we worked our way up towards the Football Stadiums, around Goodison through the park and then up to Anfield - the locals were out in force, I was offe...

I've said before that I'm crap at being ill... But I'm recovering... And that solid core of who and what I am is still there.  Reinforced by what I helped happen at the weekend.  The CHF  team worked hard over the last 8 months to get the programme set up and ready to roll, sweet talking & strong arming companies to get the maximum bang for every penny that is raised for us.  The volunteers, that small army of people who cheerfully and freely give their time, are heroes one and all - the nurses who were there all weekend, both in case of problems (they've never been needed for anything cardiac) and also just to chat to parents & kids, the people who manned the stands, the bouncy castle and face painted for hours on the Quayside.  The parents and kids were there to enjoy themselves, and from what I saw and heard they did - these weekends are about creating a bit of space so families can be families, and chat to families who get the is...

I'm not good when I'm ill... I hate having a cold, I detest taking more lotions and potions than I have to do to keep the systems working. However, the cold I predicted before the run in to London has finally landed with avengeance, at the same time as I've been dealing with hayfever.  One masked the other and the 10k on Thursday was probably more of a warning sign than I picked up on. So, sudefed & lemsip capsules and more calories than you can imagine have been thrown down my neck - yesterday was awful, today just bad.  Tomorrow is back to work, so of course I'll be better by 10am... It was meant to be a 13 miler this weekend, so I'm switching to positive mental imaging... and hoping that'll get me around Liverpool. I did a 26.2 mile training run with a few (36,000) of my friends and took a stunning 12 min off my PB in London.  Since then I've run well within myself, walked a few miles with a few thousand feet of ascent, been injured, recovered...

I'm a lucky sod... In the space of four days I've been with some of the most inspirational people I know from the two parts of my life that people have the most problem reconciling... Starting up the BT Tower, I was part of a stunningly brilliant group of people.  A select group of disabled network leaders and organisations that get disability in the work place were at the launch of a very important book - for the first time someone has done some research into why people do, or more likely don't, tell their employer they have a long-term health condition or disability. That someone is Kate Nash, one of the few delightfully mad people I would cheerfully walk on fire for, she has a quiet determination born of fighting the good fight and knowing that sometimes that annoying as it is the quiet, long game wins... Leadership comes in many forms, hers is one I wish I could emulate more as I charge at the next windmill... So, if you have a minute have a look - this i...