The tide will turn

This is a race to write. How apt ha.  No but literally I am half asleep and tonight I did for sure say that I was taking a day off from this, but whether anyone is reading it or not I almost feel as if in the same way that I must commit to training for these scant few weeks I have to train for Iron man , I am also compelled to update this blog everyday, well at the moment anyway.

What keeps happening actually is that events conspire to make me need to write something to acknowledge these developments. I have a quote below, in all honesty I was rummaging around for one but it does fit what I want to express.

" Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."
  Harriet Beecher Stowe

Located on chapter 11 of the long course triathletes training bible, " Going Long" by Joe friel, but I am not utilising it in terms of not giving up on our training for Iron man in the sense of quitting a swim or a run or bike. Its an " everything" I am speaking of. Sometimes it's like everything gets on top of us and it can be so hard to not just say what's the point and then in that precise moment the tide can turn and actually usually does. Between that moment of feeling despondent and then not actually giving up there is room then for that most valuable of all gifts we possess, letting go. When we let go things happen.

Today I just kept on receiving. Earlier today I had a successful physio session, I really like this young woman. I also realised as I lay tense on the bed, well as you do when someone is sticking needles in your butt, but no it was more than that. There is all this tension in me because there is this fear every single day that my lingering injury will win if I push too hard. All the time on every session I carry that in my mind and I think in my body as well. There was more than the release of tension in my muscles today from the needling than just the physical. Marie Ennis a woman I know and admire sent me a link about running, it said that some people thrive with stimulation from music and others from working from what is inside them with no distraction. I am at my best when I lose my body when I run and just become my feelings in the air ( sorry if that is a bit weird is hard to explain). I think that is why the injury is so frustrating as it brings me all the time to external considerations.

I went to see my future employer then this afternoon. What a lovely lady, Tina Murphy. Again a connection who started on my twitter feed. How much do I love the potential of my twitter feed? She runs these beginners running courses for women, " Run with Tina." So simple and yet so effective. She said to me today that the central aim of what we are doing is not too encourage these women to keep returning too our courses, we want to teach them skills they can bring with them so they have the freedom to be empowered to safely exercise themselves in the future. Her approach is very holistic as well, Tina believes in teaching people how to run safely with emphasis on strengthening  ones core, stretching effectively and moving our bodies safely. Tina gets worried about my endurance nuttiness and am under strict instructions to never mention Iron man to the girls, lol. But it is interesting because she lent me a book called " Chi Running " and these holistic principles that lead to injury free running are as adaptable for the recreational runner all the way to the ultra marathon runner. It makes you think really, that whatever we are trying to do in life and however extremely different it may appear on the outside there are really universal principles we all need to follow that are identical.

Then I got home and skyped with my mentor and cheerleader Shu Milne, ( love you ha) , I know she actually reads this blog ha. I was actually getting a bit negative about a few things unrelated to Iron man but I think she was trying to guide me back in the direction that actually it is Iron man that is at the forefront of all that is important to me at the moment and yes I think we can do that as well, skirt our issues with safer ones. Shu is fab. Laura Gaisford one of my dearest friends donated to my fundraising page today and I had another shock as Rob Milne Shu's husband also did! So I felt as if I was just receiving endless amounts of friendship this evening. Another friend got in touch later on and pledged to donate and also told me she has severe morning sickness at the moment and that is why she had not been in touch for a while. You never do know what is going on in others lives at any given moment.

I felt really compelled to attach a picture to my status update on face book and tag my friends who had donated this week. I chose a picture I took while I was at LIVESTRONG HQ in Austin Texas a few weeks ago. It is their special words that sum up all they are and all they do so beautifully and they are central to the reason so many of us love and support them. Jennifer another fellow Leader of Shu and mine said that when she visited HQ and saw the words she started to cry as it was those precise words she read whilst she had cancer that provided for her strength beyond belief, she said it was impossible for her to describe what it was like to see those words at LIVESTRONG HQ in their real live home. I didn't actually know what to do with what she said it was so powerful, it also made me realise that even for that alone it was worth her flying a few thousand miles to Austin Texas from the UK. Sometimes people ask us what do LIVESTRONG provide for some of us in other parts of the world as a US based non profit, I have just given you one of the myriad thousands of answers we all could respond with too that question.

I spoke to my brother tonight. He is in Ireland for two days attending his partners, sisters wedding. My brother is back at uni as a mature student and he is doing his finals at the moment and is totally blocked on his dissertation. We discussed this and we came to the conclusion that it is always about letting go. The tide will turn if we let go. He is blocked because he desires to know the outcome and it is paralysing him, and only once he lets go of that will he get back into the flow. All the time we are asked to live without knowing whether it is because we are facing illness, training for races and yes studying for important exams.

You don't know when the tide will turn and there is one other thing even if it is sometimes impossible to let go, there are always friends and all we receive from true friends, I learnt that today. That wherever we are on that spectrum if we are lucky enough there are always friends there anyway.