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Emily's 'Dear Boobs'-a-thon

  • Marathon highs and marathon lows

      20 May 2019

    I made it to the line. It wasn't all smooth sailing as I of course expected. The highs were emotional and at times surreal, and the lows were deep and somewhat profound. I jogged (albeit very slowly) the entire time apart from the aid stations when I ate and drank, and about 500m with 7 km to go, when I had a bit of a 'moment'. I understand everyone has one of these at some point in their first marathon, I didn't want to be left out lol. I pulled out of my 'moment' with my mind focused on you, on all those cheering me on and also with gratitude that I was even out there doing it! That I even made it to the START line, never mind the finish line.

    I am proud, I am sore, I am stuffed full of pizza and I am convinced that marathon running is not a healthy pastime for me for the future - although I may have to give one more a go lol! I am very excited to rest my legs and start working through my spreadsheet of recipients for more Dear Boobs books.

    If you have a waiting room in mind, please let me know and I can add it to my list. Again, thanks for being there along side me. Your support here means that more women like me will read the wisdom in the Dear Boobs book and feel supported and encouraged and amongst great company on their 'marathon' effort through the treatment and aftermath of breast cancer.

    Much love, Emily

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  • Hmmm not quite to plan!

      4 May 2019

    Hi everyone, thank you so much for your support. Just a quick update on my last few weeks, which have not been ideal to say the least.

    The school holidays were filled with firstly the kids being unwell and then I had a horrid virus for several days. I had missed my 2 main 'building' weeks when I was supposed to have done 2 long training runs before tapering. I decided as soon as I felt ‘better’ I needed to just go out and run for as long as I could before it got too close to the event.... This was error number one (and now clearly was a stupid thing to do!)

    Error number two closely followed when I decided I would carry all my water and nutrition, which was more than twice the load I had been training with in my backpack.

    Cue hip pain and a walk/jog disaster for 2 hours 45 minutes. I was in a lot of pain I thought I should probably reduce my plans to do the half marathon instead. I had done an out and back run so no cutting short, I had to get back to the car….cursing all the way!

    After 2 days, still in pain and gathering some excellent advice from my friend, physio and coach it was apparent that I still needed to attempt a 3 hour run if I could before a taper....now only 2.5 weeks away. At the time of this suggestion I had no idea how this was going to happen with my hip pain. I following the advice, my hip eased and I managed a 3 hour 2 minute very very slow jog with much less hip pain.

    This run actually renewed my belief that things would be okay (probably) and I had realised my errors (though a bit late in the training perhaps) and most importantly for me, gained my perspective back. I ran the 3 hours super slow but without so much discomfort in my body and on such a beautiful sunny day running by the water's edge the whole way I felt the up-welling of joy and the privilege that even having the ability to attempt this event was a huge gift.

    So here I am half perched on the edge of my office chair with my hip a wee bit problematic again, but armed with great support and advice and a very unfriendly foam roller I am back working with the plan of ‘enjoy the day’. Fingers crossed my optimistic and very experienced coach is right if I follow his suggestions for the next 2 weeks, me and my incredible body that has been through so so much will make it to that finish line.

    Thanks again for all of your support team!

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