The Walker With Heart

The bowl of pasta sits steaming... The trainers and socks sit at the end of the bed... The shorts and top gently rotate in the washing machine (modern synthetics, and the amount I sweat are not a good combination)... And I smile... Tomorrow is Beat the Reaper, a 10k around a local park. The reapers wander through the woods, and silently stare at the runners, scythe in hand. It'd be easy to put too much meaning on any run where a GUCH is racing death, so I won't.  I'll go back to smiling and knowing I won't be fast tomorrow, I'll be again heading for a 70min 10k. The last couple of weeks have been about getting back into the groove, feeling good when I run, irrespective of the time it takes.  The night jog last Sunday, the pop out dragging a mate from work out for a slow dash are slowly getting easier mentally.  Not great distances, not great speed, but the point is I'm getting back out there and I'm smiling when I do it. Marathon, and Ultra, runn...

The annual check-up, an event to get even the roughest and toughest GUCH to have a few collywobbles… As I said last week I was 99% sure that everything is ok, hell it’s a year where I’ve run my two fastest marathons, my second fastest half marathon and done other mad stuff as well.   But paranoia is a great friend, and yet again my cardiologists are being sensibly paranoid about my pulmonary valve. It’s a known weakness in those of us with Fallots, and various doctors have been paranoid about mine since I was 16… So whatever the outcome of the next six-months I’ve had a damn good run. So there is some evidence that my pulmonary is weakening, and that my right ventricle is expanding a bit.   Is it a problem – not right now.   The exercise test (boo hiss on a bike), is form rather than function – when the cardiologist sits there and almost goads you with “you’ll probably beat everyone in the hospital, including the staff” you know it’s going to be fun.   I...