Heart Muscles and The Many Reasons Why I Love Beyonce.

Your heart is a muscle.
Muscles can't break.  They develop thousands of minuscule tears which heal stronger.

It's amazing really, how muscles do this.  In a few days, or weeks, you go from having a constant, gnawing pain, like your insides have turned to broken glass, to being really, miraculously, fine.  And you don't even notice.  You just realise one day that the pain isn't there anymore.  Everything feels easier, and you don't quite know when it happened.  Those minuscule tears have knitted together, into something which is still you, but less fragile.

There are probably hundreds of things which help this process along, but for me they can be condensed into three:

Beyonce, my friends and running.  Sometimes two or three at the same time.

Firstly, running.

Sadness isn't fast.  If you try hard enough, you can always outrun it.  Run as hard as you can right to the top of Pendennis Point.  All the way up the twisting, winding hill, past the docks and the OAPs eating ice cream and the kids at Ships and Castles.  Push until your thighs are burning and you can't breath.  Until your eyes are watering and you can't see straight.  Until even the tips of your fingers are screaming out for oxygen.  Keep pushing as the ground levels out.  Then, as it starts to slope down towards the seafront, push harder.  Lengthen your strides down the hill.  Past the car park, past the benches, with the sea to one side and the wind blowing straight in your face, barging through tourists and teenagers until you feel like you're flying.  All the way down to Gyllyngvase Beach.  Then you can stop.  Then you can hurl.

It's impossible to feel sad when you're flying.

If running doesn't help (and it will, if you do it properly), there is always Beyonce.  Do you think Beyonce ever let herself wallow?  Think she ever felt sad for more than five minutes about some stupid, mean, stupid guy?  HELL NO!  Of course she didn't!  What she did do is write a shitload of songs about how stupid he was, so that you don't have to.  After she'd finished putting everything he owned in a box to the left, obv.  So listen to the songs.  Eat a WHOLE TUB of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  Then drink wine.  Beyonce didn't get that booty by feeling so miserable she forgot to eat.  She got it by being an Independent Woman.  The shoes on her feet?  She bought 'em.  The clothes she's wearing?  She bought 'em.  She depends on she.  Etc.  Be Beyonce.  And if you don't quite feel Beyonce-ish, fake it until you do.  That stupid guy ain't ready for yo jelly.  Erm... You get the point.

Beyonce style booty shaking brings me nicely onto my last cure.  Friends <3.

My friends drink wine.  They take me partying.  They feed me pizza.  They also make me laugh, even when I'm sad.  Like, properly, snorting, shaking, blue drink coming out of my nose type laughing.  Whilst crying.  And drinking more wine.  There is no better cure for anything in the world than being in a cheesy nightclub, drinking cheap, vodka-based beverages and dancing like a maniac with my best friends.  Preferably to Single Ladies.  Over the last six weeks I have whinged, cried, complained and yelled.  I've probably driven everyone crazy going on about the same shit over and over again.  I've also seen more of my friends than I had over the rest of the past year.  And even though at times I've felt sad, mostly I've just felt insanely lucky to have such a brilliant group of Runner Birds and bestest, best friends.  Not forgetting my long-suffering and eternally tolerant Mum and Dad, who I have caused an unfair amount of worry for over the past few months.

Your heart is a muscle.  And you can only know how strong a muscle is if you push it to its limits.  Mine is made stronger by a brilliant support network and the ability to submerge myself in something that I love so much.

And by Beyonce.  Thanks, Bey.

PS
Remember that stupid long race I am doing?  Well it's this Sunday.  And this blog was really supposed to be about that... I kind of got distracted.
Follow this link to sponsor me <3: http://fnd.us/c/2qqa1/sh/23hoN6

My Challenge

So, it seems I have signed up for a ...ahem... hilly coast path marathon.  People's responses to this seem to vary, depending on whether they are a runner or a non-runner, trail runner or road runner and finally whether they know me or REALLY know me.

 

Firstly, runner or non-runner:  On informing my non-running friends that I plan on running 26.2 miles, along the Cornish coast path, in October, the general response seems to be "WHY???" (we'll get into my reasons later).  They usually also shudder, tell me I am mad or immediately offer me cake because I'll "run it off".  Runners on the other hand, seem to respond with some variation of "okay..." plus comment appropriate to which ever other categories they fit into above.

 

Next on the Response Flow Chart (I love a good flow chart, me) we have trail runner or road runner:  If I tell a trail runner (especially one with Mud Crew-type letters after their name) what I'm doing, I tend to get patted on the head and reminded that not only have I signed up for all their ridiculousness, I have also chosen a stretch of coast which is pretty much all uphill.  I don't mind this response.  I am aware that for the majority of trail running ultra-y people, 26.2 miles is what they do before their Weetabix in the morning.  I am also aware that in my naïve enthusiasm of wanting a photo of me looking awesome under the Land's End signpost when I finish, I have signed up for a properly shitty bit of coast path running.  Oh well.  On the other hand, when I mention to a road runner what I am doing, their response is more "...".  All the colour drains out of their face and they get a vacant look in their eyes as they attempt to fathom mile splits, PB potential and how the hell I am going to increase my weekly mileage by a maximum of 10% per week when I only have six weeks to go until the race.  I see their point.  If I'm honest, this is what my tiny brain is currently contending with too.

 

The final factor in people's response to my questionable decision making is whether the person knows me or REALLY knows me:  At first glance I suppose my choice of challenge seems reasonable.  I like running.  I like the coast.  I like to have something to endlessly and anxiously harp on about.  Why wouldn't I do something I enjoy whilst raising money for a really worthwhile cause.  If you REALLY know me however, you will pick up on a problem.  I'm a bit lazy.  And easily distracted.  So easily distracted in fact that it has taken me a good hour to do this much writing.  There's just so much other interesting stuff happening.  So while I honestly, genuinely and completely want to train hard and do well in this run, there is always the chance that something good will be on telly, or that I will spend half an hour staring at an interestingly shaped leaf on my doorstep and forget to go running.  I should probably be running now, to be honest.

 

I've made a decision though, this time.  And this decision is largely based on the reasons WHY I am doing this run:

 

Reason 1)  I am raising money for a cause which I really believe in.  You can read more about the Freedom Runner Project here: http://www.freedomrunners.org/ or on my fundraising page here: http://fnd.us/c/2qqa1/sh/23hoN6 but in a nutshell it is a social enterprise designed to employ women in rural South Africa to make reusable, inexpensive sanitary items for school girls.  In South Africa, one in three teenage girls are unable to attend school when they are on their period, simply because they can't afford sanitary products.  This means they miss around five days of school per month and, unsurprisingly, end up dropping out because they fall behind.  That is insane.  There is no excuse for that being allowed to happen anywhere, ever.

Reason 2)  Life is difficult for me at the moment.  I am struggling A LOT with varying severities of anxiety and depression which, in conjunction with a dose of citalopram which would knock out an elephant, can make even getting out of bed and not acting like a crazy person a real struggle.  A wise internet meme once said that the cure for everything is salt water: sweat, tears and the sea.  I've chosen a challenge which will give me a good dose of all three. 

Between exercise, medication and my lovely, supportive friends and family, I am going to get better.  I am going to use this amazing cause to find my muchness.  And also as an excuse to buy some funky kit.  And possibly a new pair of trail shoes.