Happy 60th Birthday Dad.

Today is my dads 60th birthday. 10 years ago today we were celebrating with a massive party in his "local" pub. The Dukes Head in Tadworth. He was lucky to be surrounded by his family and friends. At the time we didn't realise it would be his last birthday with us.

I was going to share some memories of my dad but for some reason the words won't come out. I'm sad he's not here with us and that his grandchildren will never know him. Ten years have flown by.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD. HOPE THERE'S A "LOCAL" PUB WHERE EVER YOU MAY BE.

A First Time for Everything!!

So this year is becoming a big one for "firsts"

The obvious ones are my first marathon. (Don't forget you can donate, link is at the bottom!)



I am acknowledging my own feelings towards my Dads illness for the first time. (You can text donate too! Text RLKM50 WITH THE AMOUNT TO 70070)

Well today involved two more firsts!

The very first time I have resisted the urge to press my snooze button continuously until I have no choice but to get up. I am the ultimate queen of the snooze button but not today. I awoke at six admittedly I did spend a few minutes actually getting up. Please bear in mind I did not have to be up until 7. At 6.21 and feeling very proud of myself I left the house for my 4 mile run. The FIRST TIME EVER I have actually gone out at this ungodly hour of my own accord for a run!!

15 minutes in and I'm feeling awesome, I've done it! I am a disciplined, dedicated early morning runner. I've left my bed and am embracing the early morning air, running up the dual carriage way (a hill might I add!) when suddenly with no warning the pavement is getting closer to my face and I end up splatted on the hard concrete!!

This is my 2nd 1st for the day.

I am horrified! I have fallen for the first time ever apart from when running through mud but that is more of a slip so doesn't count. Rolling from my bruised and painful knees, I feel the sting of my hands and see the blood on my palms, now I'm realising my left knee has taken most of the force and I panic that I've done a serious injury. With tears in my eyes I heave myself to standing and then thank my lucky stars only one car was driving past to witness my epic splatting! And they didn't stop to check me for fatal injuries!! However they are probably like the sensible me who stays in bed and presses snooze until the last minute and have no time to stop and help a mad woman running at stupid O'clock!
So with my bruised and battered pride and my sore bits I limp off in the direction of home, cursing my good intentions and resigning myself to the fact I will never run again due to my horrific injuries!! Luckily I am just as stubborn as I am a drama queen with the pain threshold of a gnat and I decide to limp on with my remaining 2 miles and seek the sympathies of my offspring when I get home! Who after initial concern resume their inability to get out of bed. Probably safer!

For those of you wondering why I fell, I must point out it wasn't my fault. I got tangled in a nylon box tie thing! It made me think of the poor seagulls that get tangled in beer can plastic things!

So the moral of the story is -

ALWAYS PRESS THE SNOOZE BUTTON

 

 

DON'T DROP BOX TIES.

 

 

 

By the way I am perfectly fine apart from a few grazes and being capable of feeling like the only person ever to have fallen over!

Who knows I may even attempt an early morning run again. I wouldn't mind but as most of my running is done in the dark it is typical I fell when it was light.

 

 

On another note I have my lovely photos for my fundraising press release courtesy of Mike Gatiss.

 

http://archive.mikegatissphoto.com/

 

 

<a href='http://www.justgiving.com/rebecca-kempsey' title='JustGiving - Sponsor me now!' target='_blank'><img src='http://www.justgiving.com/App_Themes/JustGiving/images/badges/badge10.gif' width='270' height='50' alt='JustGiving - Sponsor me now!' /></a>

 

 

 

 

 



Being brave.

Today is the day I become brave.

I had a drastic hair cut! (Not because I am having a mid life crisis whatever some may think!)

I will write like I am "just talking" as advised by my friend when I said how I was struggling with getting my thoughts on paper. (screen)

My struggle is that I fear I have to begin the real journey of my marathon training and the purpose of writing this blog.

To acknowledge my own feelings to the loss of my dad and motor neuron disease.

I read this quote today-

I run because I can.

When I get tired I remember those who can't run,

what they would give to have this simple gift I take for granted,

and I run harder for them.

I know they would do the same for me.

It made me cry! (again!)

I don't take running for granted as one of the reasons I started in the first place is because I realised I have a healthy body that can do amazing things. For a long time I took that for granted and wasted my potential to do amazing things and hated my body. Motor Neurone Disease can affect anyone and quite often at a young age with no warning, no effective treatment and no cure. If it can affect anyone, then one day it could affect me too. I would hate for that day to come and for me to say "I wish I had done more with my healthy body"

It makes me so sad to think that so many young people like my dad who thought they had years ahead of them had their lives ended so soon. So for every day I am able to run I am thankful. It makes the saying "life is too short to be unhappy" more meaningful.

That is all for now.

Extendable dog leads and fab friends.

So it's been 11 days since I started my fundraising. So far I have a fantastic £180. That is 18% of my total target and I still have 18 weeks and 5 days left to go. That's 131 days. So I figure that since I'm so good at maths I'll provide some figures!! Here goes-

I need to raise £6.25 pence every day to make my total.

OR

I need to convince 820 people to be my friend and donate £1

OR

164 friends who all donate £5 each.

Other maths I have worked out (Clever girl I am!!)

I will run approximately 406 miles in training. Actually down to 393 now since I worked that out.

I have 57 training runs planned.

On to more serious business. I spoke to Michael today from the MNDA fundraising team. He has been really helpful and is going to get my face in the local newspapers!!! So watch this space. I apparently need a high resolution picture of me running for which I have requested the services of my friend Mike Gatiss. Top photographer extraordinaire. (Link for fantastic photo opportunities hopefully to follow!)

I have also roped in my fabulously amazing friend Laura Denny to help make this blog a more pretty and pleasing to the eye read. As I am totally useless with the creative stuff and she is totally fabulous.

I have also joined up to the MNDA Virgin London Marathon Facebook Page. Through all the running and excitement of fundraising I am very good at distracting myself away from the real reason I am running. I am doing it for my dad. Reading other peoples stories and experiences is very emotional and far too close to the bone, but is part of a grieving process I need to confront.
As I sit writing this I feel the lump in my throat and the tears threaten to gain momentum. It's been 10 years since my dad passed away and yet it is still far easier to ignore emotions than confront them.

While running this evening I realised that I don't actually know very much about the disease that took my dad when he was far too young to go. This is probably down to the fact that it is easier to ignore it and pretend it's not there. But as they say, it is better to face your fears.
On the subject of fear, I think most runners will agree that dogs are a concern at times. I'm not frightened of the dogs themselves but while out this evening I had the very real possibility of a Red Setter cutting across my path and clothes lining me with his extendable lead!!!! Worse still I had no one videoing and would have missed out on the £250 You've Been Framed money!!

Day one. avoidance/acceptance

So today I finally got around to setting up my fundraising site. This is scary in more ways than one as it means two things. (I did say more ways than one!)

1) I actually have to seriously run 26 miles. ha ha ha ha ha yes seriously!

2) This is probably the tough bit. As I am doing this in memory of my dad I have come to realise that this is part of my grieving process. 10 years on and i am probably now only realising how his illness and death has affected my family.

So you see this marathon business isn't just a way of making some money for a worthy cause or me trying to loose a few toenails, (I never did like them anyway, all painted and pretty in open toed shoes in the summer). For me this is a way of addressing unresolved issues and pushing myself to do something that 10 years ago I'd never have thought possible.

So for the last few months I have avoided the fact that I signed up for this marathon and thought I had loads of time to get round to promoting my worthy cause and get into proper training. However after a friendly chat with my lovely neighbour Katherine and the Vicar! (yes the vicar, even god won't spare me)  I need to get a move on.

On average I run between 13 and 20 miles a week with most runs being between 4 and 8 miles. Only a little bit further to go then!! This morning I set out to do 5 feeling a bit resentful but managed to persuade myself to do 6.5 and ended up doing 7.3 miles so not a bad start.

If you choose to follow my story there may be some opportunities to have a good laugh at me as I'll be trying to take my camera out on runs too, to capture the joys of running!

<a href='http://www.justgiving.com/rebecca-kempsey' title='JustGiving - Sponsor me now!' target='_blank'><img src='http://www.justgiving.com/App_Themes/JustGiving/images/badges/badge10.gif' width='270' height='50' alt='JustGiving - Sponsor me now!' /></a>