Taking Submissions (Like a true bureaucrat)

This picture is DISGUSTING:So awesomely disgusting. What is more disgusting? That these blighters...well similar blighters are living inside me. Not for long. They are gallstones by the way. Anyway...I was just looking for an excuse to GROSS YOU ALL OUT.

Here is the submission topic...when I first cultivated these babies the pain was very bad (but that part is boring). Then, the last six months it has gotten much better. These times I am quite happy to refer to as gallstone ATTACKS but now when the pain comes it is (according to the specialist temporarily) not that bad. When they thought I had a stomach ulcer I could refer to these pains as heartburn...not too dramatic. Now what am I supposed to say? I can't say ooh I have a wee bit of gallstone attack. Too dramatic.

So...I need a new term. Gallstone scalding, gallstone rumble, gallstone foottrip, gallstone fisticuffs. I think the current winner is gallstone SCUFFLE but we can work further on this. 

A plea to all drivers on behalf of all runners, particularly in foggy weather

Please drivers listen to my pleas:

• Do NOT drive over cattle stops when we are on them...it makes our legs spasm and we feel as though we are about to die or the world is ending (LOUDLY).
• You create a SMALL HURRICANE when you fly past us at great speed. If we are beside a cliff go AROUND us. Just pretend we are real people and falling off a cliff might have consquences.
• We have to wee. We just do. Pretend you don't see us. It's better for everyone that way.
• If we have a minor GAMMY FALL or are so pained and tired that we walk, do not pull over and ask if we are okay or if we want a ride. We could not possibly want a ride more but we will never accept and though we look like we are dying we should survive (Please note this does not apply if arms are bent in the wrong place, there is excessive blood or we are losing consciousness).
•  Drive SLOWLY in the fog. I know it is funny to watch us scamper in your headlights but we have feelings too and though we may move like spastic rabbits we are human. Hard to believe I know. (Note: if you would like to try the oh my goodness I am about to be hit by a ute dance it goes like this: small step left, leap right, look up at rampant vehicle, 3 small steps left, small step right, leap left off road, watch driver laugh on way past and give a gammy wave). 
  

A small story for your entertainment. Running along on Sunday we are up on the road, look left to see some poor woman weeing by the road. She looks up, grins with very embarrassed look on her face. It's got to be done. Run for hours and my running partner needs to wee (ALL THE BLIMMIN TIME). It is an extremely exposed area, not even any tussock but hey we have seen noone for hours. Go for it. I am standing on the road when I see a shadow running out of the fog. I laugh out loud at how ironic it is that NOW is when we see someone. Who is it? The weeing lady. She looks down off the road, sees my friend doing exactly the same thing. "I know that feeling" she says, "I know you do" I think but "Got to be done" I say. Ah honour among runners.

If this was the last time

Today (I think, using the term in that mixed hemisphere confusion kind of way) is the 1 year anniversary since Nie Nie (one of my favourite bloggers), her husband Christian and their friend were involved in a terrible accident. 

Nie Nie, Christian and their family have inspired me so much since reading their story...Stephanie's blog is here if you want to read more. In short, there was a terrible light plane crash and both Stephanie and Christian were extremely badly burnt. Their friend Doug did not survive and I guess they continue on a long long road to recovery in so many ways.

Today Stephanie is hiking the Y (I say as if I know what that means) to mark the anniversary of the events that changed their lives in such an extraordinary way. She invited others to join her but being in completely the wrong hemisphere I couldn't quite make it to the Y. Instead I ran. I ran the longest I have ever run. In the fog covered hills, past brand new lambs, past the beach, past the point of my longest run so far. I ran inspired by this amazing woman who doubtless has days of unimaginable struggle but who has grabbed hold of everything it is to be alive. 

A while ago I heard a sermon by Shane Hipps about fasting and feasting. This was around the same time I began to read about Nie Nie. What is it to feast? Perhaps it is to FEEL everything as you might if it were your last time. If this were the last meal I ate I wouldn't scoff it down, I would want to EXPERIENCE every piece of it. All it is to LIVE. As I listened to this, I was running. I had just started again and it was a struggle. But I listened and I ran a little taller and I bounced a little more with every step.

I believe Nie Nie was a runner. I believe she will be again. But right now I guess that is one tiny part of what she has lost (If I could ever call losing the ability to move your body in some way without pain, or at all, tiny - only in comparison to incredible loss). Today, I thought about her courage, today I wanted to do something to mark it. The band in my knee started hurting, it makes me want to leave my leg bent all the time. It hurt, I won't deny that. But what I thought was fight on, fight on because you can, because this leg will unbend, because this body will, if treated right, do almost anything you want. You never know how long that will last. I want to TASTE it. So I choose to RUN and EXPERIENCE and LIVE. I want to do these things as if this is the last time. I want to run with more bounce in my step.

Nie Nie's gratitude at living builds gratitude in me. This is what they call inspired.

I ran just over 40k.

You have to put up with the running posts too sorry...

Hey hey it's Saturday...well almost. This week was an "easy" running week (easy weeks involve a lot more running than they used to). So...so far I did the following:

Sunday - 21.1k

Wednesday - Rapaki (oh the pain)

Thursday - 45 mins Fartleks (you are going to have to be very creative to come up with a fartlek joke I haven't made yet).

And...tomorrow I shall run again before the next big kahuna Sunday - you are likely to hear about that next week.

Running lessons learnt this week:

An incredible sunrise makes it worth it:

Shin splints hurt

Ice and wrapping help a lot

Fartlek means "speed play", For playing it is not very fun...painful would be more the word.

It was a good running week. I feel rested and ready for a big one. I am greatly fearing the Abel Tasman Coastal Classic whilst simultaneously greatly looking forward to it.

In other news...

1) Got to go home from work 3 hours early yesterday because Lyttelton had no power...wohoo.

2) Took the day off today and went to hanmer...ahhhh goodness

3) I am going to try to make a dress out of a vintage pillow case for my niece's birthday...news on that shortly.

OH AND... I found the Amy Butler pattern I wanted...in Hanmer. So cool. Wai Ariki farm park... and she will even post them to you...

Leaving you...with great guilt at making you read about running.

What's this all about eh?

Well I have been trawling through old pictures again.

I had taken pictures of myself when the black dog was heaviest on my back, when I was losing the battle well and truly, when I wasn't sure how this would all work out, or if it would at all. I took the pictures to show my doctor when words weren't coming easily. I wanted to draw them, to show what I was too scared to say.

         

I could name them...tired, empty, sad, defeated, embarrassed...these pictures sit in my iphoto in a folder called 'stuff to draw'. 

But further in, hidden amongst a whole hodgepodge of photos from the past year or so is this photo:

Taken by surprise, by someone at work. No mask either way. And what I am struck by is how SICK I look. I guess I was. The black dog is not just in our heads.

Now I am so much better. It's not that things are better. Things were never bad in the first place. But I am better. It is under control. I'm winning. 

Welcome to a world too beautiful for grief.