Land of no trees!

Its official there is now less than two weeks until I leave for Antarctica (the land of no trees as a friend aptly described it) and I am on running taper. For those of you not familiar with the magical words 'running taper' it means that during the last few weeks before the marathon you reduce the number of kilometers you run per week (especially the Long run) to give your body a chance to rest and recover for the marathon.


On sunday morning after listening to the heavy rain all night I wasn't convinced that I should get up and go for a 32km run but since I had made plans to meet a friend at 6.30am I felt obliged to get out there - rain or no rain! We started running together but it became apparent that we were pacing differently and since she was more than happy to do her own run that meant I had a 32km solo run, just me and my thoughts - excellent training for Antarctica !

I was thinking a lot about what motivated me to undertake this 'crazy' challenge and get up and go for a run in the rain at 6.30am on a sunday morning. There are a number of different reasons, probably the initiating drive was to undertake the Antarctic Ice Marathon - the uniqueness of the event really sparked my interest. Then I decided to combine the Antarctic Ice Marathon with the Alice Springs Marathon to create the two desert marathons and raise funds and awareness for Indigenous Cardiovascular disease research. This campaign put my little challenge into the public domain and made me very much accountable for delivering on my challenge. And the final reason - well last week I read a short story that provided a lovely analogy of one my drivers to undertake and complete the challenge.



I will shorten the story but it started with a little girl and her grandfather walking along a beach when they noticed all these starfish washed up on the beach. The little girl immediately started picking up the the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the sea as far as her little arm could reach. Her grandfather eventually called her over and explained that were 1000s of starfish on the beach and she couldn't save them all. She looked down at the starfish in her hand and threw it into the sea and said, "no, but it sure made a difference to that one".

So what does this all mean to me - well I can't cure cardiovascular disease in Indigenous Australians but I hope that perhaps that what I have been doing may contribute to more people being aware of the issues and supporting the valuable research done by Centre for Indigenous Vascular and Diabetes Research . I also hope that maybe my event might inspire someone else to go and take up their own challenge - we are all only limited by our self-belief.