Last Sunday morning many fantastic women across Great Britain, went without their traditional weekend lie-ins to run, jog and walk 5km for Cancer Research in the annual Race For Life, writes Beth Squires
Like many great ideas, my friends and I first pondered this one in the pub, whilst inebriated enough to think that running just over three miles would be no problem at all. The next morning, hungover and confused, the declarations came back to me… and although the reasons for doing it hadn't vanished (that we all know one or more close friends or family members who have battled Cancer) the reality loomed before me. I was out of shape, for one thing and running continuously for a minute, (let alone twenty to sixty minutes) was really quite laughable.
But it turns out, the great thing about the Race For Life is that it isn’t really a race at all. A whole spectrum of abilities is catered for; those who want a stroll in the sunshine, to the ultra-fit competitive types who zoom off at the starting siren in a cloud of dust. The lovely team of girls I entered with were a mixture; one a fitness fanatic, one quietly fit, one not so versed in the ways of exercise as the latter and me? I’m the same. Half-heartedly joining up to a gym and then going a few times does not an athlete make… My experiences of exercise were poisoned by complete apathy and foolishness during P.E at school and I just hadn’t left the starting blocks since. But here it finally was – the perfect chance to get fit for a worthwhile cause.
It started off well; I went back to the gym for at least a week. And then, well, I got lazy. A month went by, the weather got sunnier, and then I woke up and thought, "Perhaps I should actually try this jogging thing before the run?" So I did. My ever-supportive housemate encouraged me to go to the park in the evening after manic days at work, full of motivational words and never complaining when he had to wait for me, huffing and puffing, to make it across the park. He even did the Elle Macpherson Body Workout DVD
By this point I had lost a few pounds and was feeling loads better, so in my self-sabotaging mind this was a perfect time to stop again - work got in the way, I was tired, all excuses were pouring out of me. And then the weather, which had been so fine and dry, turned into a wailing banshee of wind and rain. A trip away for the weekend, which had been my buffer between the comfy present and the future scary race, came and went… and then, far too quickly, it was time.
The day before, I frantically Googled for recipes and last minute exercises that would somehow transform me into Paula Radcliffe, but to no avail… this really was it. On the Saturday before, I rested and watched old episodes of The OC, aware that simultanesously my well-trained, super-fit cousin was running the Race For Life in Manchester. In the evening I checked how much my girls and I had raised in sponsorship and was pleasantly surprised – now all I had to do was fulfill my side of the bargain and make it round the course… All that was still buzzing rounnd my head as I sat on the tube, half-asleep at 8am. I expected that it would take me about an hour to wheeze round the course, but the important thing was that the money would be assured for Cancer Research. What I wasn’t expecting was for it to be a life-changing experience.
I met up with my team just before nine and we pinned our ‘I Race For Life For…’ signs on our back, each of us having filled in the names of those we had lost or people we knew who had fought the disease. I looked around as we were led through a warm-up; the five thousand women running in London that day had written a variety of things on their own signs, from the names of family members and friends, to ‘hope’, ‘a cure’ and, most thought-provokingly, ‘me’. It was a resounding show of strength, hope and will that everyone there was involved in – together we, and all those who sponsored us, were striving to help find a cure for a debilitating disease that is a part of almost everyone’s daily consciousness.
As the starting siren finally sounded my friend and I, quite happily the least fit of our team, jogged easily past St Paul’s Cathedral, waiting for the inevitable moment when we would start to tire. We carried on. In fact we didn’t stop for twenty-three minutes in the hot June weather, until we needed a drink, this might not seem like many minutes to the fit amongst you, but to us it was massive achievement. I think the motivation we received from the other runners, the people supporting on the sidelines and the amazing atmosphere meant that everyone surpassed their own expectations. In the end we finished in just over 37 minutes, and slowly jogged at least 4 ½ km of the 5. Not only had we done a great thing for Cancer Research, I learned that I needed to have more faith in my abilities and myself.
I want to congratulate everyone who did the Race For Life this year and thank all our sponsors. If you didn’t do it this year, I recommend giving it a go later this summer or at least sponsor someone taking part. I really can’t wait to do it again next year; I want to beat the amount we raised this year… and also beat my time!
To find out how to enter a Race For Life near you, visit www.raceforlife.org!
