I started a couple of years ago, running just one mile through the village. Then one of the fittest people I know, (morning Jo...) started coaching me on the 'couch to 5K' programme. All good.
A health blip meant I had to stop for a while, for some treatment. Then I got back out there. These days, I feel great and have more time, so I try a mix of running and walking four or five miles, as often as I can.
Today I ignored the gloom and was soon strolling, then speeding along to a ridiculous mix of Springsteen, the Stones, and some vintage soul. In fact, I felt so good, I even slowed down to let Kenny Rogers croon 'Lady' to me, just by the Shelton water tower.
I was about a mile and a half from home when I saw a bloke I know vaguely. Our kids went to school together. He was walking his dog, so I pulled the headphones off, grinned and asked if he'd 'survived Christmas' ok.
Bad choice of words. He had. But one of his children, it turned out, has been fighting cancer. The 'child' is now mid twenties, a lifelong runner, one of the kids that would bring everyone at sports day to their feet as they pounded round the track to another first place ticket, way ahead of the field. Young. Strong. Fast. Lean. And fit? The treatment's gone well, apparently, and they're hoping a scan soon will confirm things are improving.
But as the runner's dad walked away with his dog, I just wondered: 'what's the point?' If someone so much younger, leaner, fitter than most of us can get a knock on the door from the Big C, why bother? Same goes for any number of people you and I know. Too young. Too careful with their diets, too conscientious with their lifestyles to fall foul of nasty diseases, surely.
And then they do.
I contemplated abandoning my run, strolling over to the bus stop and scraping the small change from my running belt into something like my fare home.
I glimpsed back and saw the runner's dad turn into his lane, shoulders down. I slammed my music back on loud, and ran the hardest and fastest I'd ever done, all the way home.
And so I'm here. Shaking a bit. Freezing now, and wrapped in a huge jumper and so dizzy I'm seeing stars.
I'm wondering what the answer is. For me, I think it's this. You can only do your best, and look after yourself as well as you can, and take responsibility for your own health. Even then, some people will smoke forty a day from the age of thirteen and die peacefully in their sleep at 103, with nary a cough. Good luck to them. Nobody 'deserves' cancer. It's a vile disease. Others will eat pies all day and carry the additional avoirdupois with them into their dotage, without a twinge or a palpitation. Hooray for them, too.
Meanwhile, some will live a textbook 'healthy' lifestyle, and get the worst news they could hear; early doors. Life ain't fair. It turns horrible right-angles sometimes. So do what makes you happy. And live for today.
What do you reckon?
The sun's shining now, by the way. Have a good day.
Comments:
This one from a friend of mine who's being treated for breast cancer: 1One of the people I see in the waiting room when I go for radiotherapy is a little lad of no more than about 5, with no hair. Chirpy little fella. Always on his iPad, playing games. Cancer's just so bloody indiscriminate1.
Netherton Foundry has left a new comment on your post "Survival of the fittest?":
That's a tough one - I think we each have to do what feels right for us, whilst taking responsibilty for our lives and our wellbeing. Cancer is non discriminatory, but we can't use that as an excuse not to take care of ourselves
That's a tough one - I think we each have to do what feels right for us, whilst taking responsibilty for our lives and our wellbeing. Cancer is non discriminatory, but we can't use that as an excuse not to take care of ourselves
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