Phoebe has documented her fundraising journey and
preparation to take on the Robin Hood Marathon as part of Student Mind’sAmazing Raise.
I mean that’s perfectly normal right? I can paint the scene
for you if you like. Outside the rain begins to fall on a dark night. Me.
Single. Twenty-four years old. Sitting alone in my living room with a spoonful
of Ben and Jerry’s dangling from my hands while singing ALL BY MYSELF… Oh wait. That’s Bridget Jones. Still. Pretty
similar. Except instead of crying over a Mr. Darcy I was crying over my
non-existent common sense.
As soon as I paid the entry fee (£45 who knew paying to
torture yourself could be so expensive?) I realised I hadn’t thought things
through. A marathon is 26.2 miles. That’s twice further than I’ve ever run
before….
So naturally, I buried my head in the sand. I’m quite a
nervous person anyways. Often my anxiety causes me to overthink everything but
as the weeks turned into months and September crept up upon me I realised more
than ever I had to face my challenge head on. I had already had a summer
routine in place with weight training, a weekly long run and some shorter
distances. I did a bit of research. Read some blogs. Did some motivational meditation
on Youtube where some American woman intoned in her voice full of chakra that I
was to channel my spirit animal (a tiger) into this task! I was starting to
feel pretty confident. I looked good! I
felt good! I was feeling motivated!
Then… my ankle
struck!
I had injured my
ankle very seriously in the past and being the not-quite-as-young-tiger-cub (my
mum calls me that, it’s much better than “little tiger”) it wasn’t healing as
well and it got to a point where I began to worry about the fact that I might
not even make it to the starting line. All summer I had kept my marathon a
small secret, only a few friends knew about it. I think I did that on purpose
because it was as if I didn’t believe it was going to happen. But now I had
given myself a serious strain and needed to go sit out for a bit it hit me how
much this challenge meant to me. I had to take a few weeks off to do physio and
juggled that with just going to the gym and using the body machines. And gently
in between trying out new fitness classes I did everything you could imagine.
RICE. Rubbing tiger balm (hence the tiger-cub) lotions on my skin. Propping my
leg up at every opportunity. Googling massage techniques for my knee joints.
It made me think a lot more about why and what I was running
for. As a student while at University I have had a few mental health up and
downs. Sometimes they do make me sit things out for a while. Whether it’s
social activities, meeting with friends or lectures. Mental health is just like
any physical illness or injury. You can’t rush it as my physio describes and
you just have to try and be patient like how I needed to do my exercises
readily every single day (I’m sorry Physio – I forget sometimes… ) but over the
course of the month all that stretching, ankle flipping, me moaning, just
waiting around has helped me build my leg muscles back up. I’ll spare you the
details but I can tell you I have activated my glutes! And it’s looking good!
It still hurts! Don’t get me wrong! I’m not looking forward
to 26.2 miles but what I am looking forward to now more than ever is trying 26.2 miles out for
a charity that reminds
me to look after my head as much as my body.
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