Growing up.

It's funny, growing up.  Just when you think it's over, that you're a grown-up now, something new happens and you realise you're probably still just a kid, really.

I've never properly lost a friend, until recently.  Obviously I've had friends that I'm no longer really friends with, but that's mainly been due to either growing apart or moving away.  And I've never really lost someone who I expected to be around forever.  It's always been people I wasn't too fussed about.

Anyway, recently I've lost a friend.  I'd have called her a best friend, actually, but she obviously didn't feel the same way.  Someone who's been there through good and bad, laughed until we cried and held me when I was sad.  I'd like to think I've done the same for her, but perhaps she doesn't see it that way.  I suppose we've always been different in lots of ways, but we've always laughed about it, always seen the ways we're similar as more important.

A few months ago I realised I hadn't been hearing from her so often.  And that when I had it was because I'd been pestering her, rather than because she'd bothered to get in contact with me.  No problem, this friend had gone off the radar before, I'd just send her a message telling her how much I missed her and did she want to meet up soon.  So I sent the message, she read it, but I never got a reply.  Then I started to notice things, on Facebook and from people we knew.  The friend going to parties, or having parties and not inviting me.  Ditching on me and then meeting up with other people.  Messages through the grapevine that she was "happy to hang out with me" as long as my boyfriend wasn't there.  That's the only clue I have for why she's disappeared.  And it seems like such a small, petty reason so disappear that I can't help but feel that there must be something more to it.  I just don't know what it could be.

I'm not writing this to bitch the friend out, or to question her reasons for cutting me out of her life.  I'm just...writing.  Knowing I've upset her somehow, and being able to do nothing about it, feels awful.  It's like at school, when everyone suddenly turns against you, and you don't know why.  To begin with you keep trying to make everyone like you again, but after a while you just give up and get on as best you can.  At least at school though, there was an ending in sight.  I knew that one day I would get out into the big wide world, where I had hundreds of friends and stuff was settled by talking about it, not by the silent treatment.

I guess maybe this post is just me trying to make sense of things.  Because honestly, at the moment I feel like my heart has been fucking broken.  I'd pretty much do anything to make it right, but I can't because I don't know what I need to do. I've never really been dumped (except for once, when I was 16, by text...not that I'm bitter), but I guess this is what it feels like.  I miss her every day.  Something funny will happen and I'll want to tell her about it, then remember that I can't.  I'll feel sad and know that she's the only one who can make me snap out of it.  We have so much water under the bridge between us that I never thought we'd grow apart, but now we have.  As melodramatic as it sounds, it feels like a part of me has died.

If the friend is reading this, I hope she feels the same way.  I hope she send me a text, or gives me a call.  Even if it's just to tell me why she suddenly hates me.  I hope we can sort something out.

My Weekend and The Challenges of Running and Partying Effectively.

In lots of ways, last Friday night wasn't much different from a normal Friday night, for me.  I left the house at about 9:30pm and didn't return until 8am Saturday morning, having not had any sleep in between.  Unusually though, my Friday night plans didn't contain alcohol or unsuitable boys.  They did involve little white pills, but they were only Pro-Plus.  They also featured a pub, a group of noisy Runner Birds and a serious amount of microwave jacket potatoes.  I am now the potato microwaving queen.

For those of you who don't know what the fuck I'm on about yet, I spend my Friday night marshalling at Mud Crew's Arc of Attrition; a 100 mile foot race along the Cornish Coast path, from Coverack to Porthtowan.  Yep.  100 miles.  Makes my ACC adventure look like the Race For Life.  

Now, I am not the sanest person I know.  I'm pretty accepting of weirdness.  But to run 100 miles in one go takes a special kind of crazy.  In no other situation could you expect to encounter bright orange board shorts, trench foot and a man known only as Papa Ferret all in the same place, without anyone batting an eyelid.  But encounter them I did and, despite the complete mentalness of the race and its competitors, I left feeling completely humbled by the level of commitment and hardcoreness it takes to even train for this kind of race, let alone finish it.

I'll admit it now: I haven't been running much lately.  In fact, today is the first day I've run since sometime in the middle of October.  To begin with I had a bit of a twinge in an old injury and I used this as an excuse to slack off, which meant partying more and sleeping less.  After a while it just seemed like too much effort to get my trainers on again.  It's torture running with a hangover anyway.

Ever since I started running, I've found the balancing act between training, partying and boring shit that I have to do (work, eating, sleeping, cleaning) really hard.  I love to run.  I love getting out on the trails with my music and being completely alone.  I love feeling fit and full of endorphins.  But I love partying as well.  I love to drink and dance and not come home until the early hours.  I love being with my friends who don't run and lying in bed eating pizza all of Sunday.  If I didn't have to do all the boring bits, I think the two things would go together fine.  I could party every night, sleep until lunch and then run in the afternoons.  Apparently though, I have Other Responsibilities, and that's where the problems start.  How can you get out for your long run on a Sunday morning when you're still not sober from the night before?  How can you pay for cross-training classes when all your money goes on pizza and whiskey?  How can you even begin to fit in all the fun stuff you want to do when you have to work 30 hours a week?  And yes, I get Mondays off.  And no, it's still not enough time.

Anyway.  In my post-run smugness this afternoon, while I was whinging about my first world problem with my Mum (who, by the way, appears to have her run-work-party balance down) I remembered I'm entered for Mud Crew's next mental event - The Dark.  10 night time miles around the Lanhydrock Estate near Bodmin.  I deferred last year in an attempt to save my poor, jaded tendons for the London Marathon, which means I got entered automatically for this year... Oops.  I really fancied it last year, mainly because I like glow paint and neon stuff and running in the dark seems like a good excuse to crack out both, so it would be a shame to waste my place just because I'm feeling lazy at the moment.  Unnatural as it sounds, I could even schedule my long(er - I refuse to run more than 15 miles) runs on Mondays, when nothing's doin', because everyone else is at work.  Or maybe not... Actually even thinking about that is upsetting my training plan OCD.  

So I guess I'm back to the run/party balancing act.  Considering there's a JD and coke sat next to me while I'm writing this, and considering the look of despair on The Boyfriend's face at the thought of me getting up early to run at the weekends, I'm not sure how well this is going to go.  If my boss is reading this, then an extra paid day off a week wouldn't go amiss.  If a generous millionaire is reading, I wouldn't say no to being paid what I'm earning now just to drink and run and write about it.  Until one of these things happens, I'll just have to comfort myself with the thought that I only have to train for 10% of the distance the runners at the Arc covered over the weekend.  And I KNOW that most of them like a drink or ten.  

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.