A reason to run
I only really started running during my last year of university. At the time, it was more a way of getting away from my dissertation and thus reducing the risk of hurling my various computers out of the 11th floor window in SHEER MANLY RAGE. That said, it was fun, in a kind of masochistic way, and while I went out maybe once every couple of months or so after I moved to Tokyo, I did miss the regular thrice-a-week schedule I’d once kept.
I started running again about a week ago. Slowly, I might add, since the last 2 years of sitting on my arse at work (oooh, again in front of a computer - the pattern develops) have left me a little… spongy, but since I actually have a reason to pound the pavement *coughgirlcough* it all seems worth it.
Well, I thought I had a good reason. But I’ve found a better one.
Terry Fox attempted a run across Canada on a prosthetic leg after losing it to osteosarcoma, in what became known as his “Marathon of Hope”. He died a year later at the tragically young age of 22.
The Terry Fox Run is held around the world every year now, and has no prizes; no advertising; just the run, in aid of raising money for cancer research. This year’s run in Tokyo will be held on September 20, 2008.
The timing coincides neatly with the first anniversary of my grandfather’s death after suffering from brain cancer. He was a tough old sod, and I think he would have sneered at a mere 5km run.
Now, given that I was sadly born with a congenital lack of initiative, I’m grateful to BUPA for laying out my training schedule for me. Without it, I’d have probably run myself into a wheezing, stitch-wracked wreck and about 7 minutes into my first training session.
As it is, I’ve got the time. I could bump this up to 10km. Any excuse to run.
