It started with some slight pins and needles in my right leg just as I was reaching the summit of a short sharp hill. As a health professional I went through the options, pulled muscle, cramp? No I thought, it’s probably just a too tight knicker leg – yes I know that’s daft but it seemed logical at the time.. It wore off and I forgot about it and finished my run without incident.
A few days later the pins and needles returned, this time in both legs – no tight knickers to blame this time but again I shook it off and got on with life.
Over the next few weeks the incidents became more frequent and at times walking became a chore – rest periods were built into my walk.
There comes a point where you suddenly realise that you just can’t ignore the obvious – there was something wrong with my legs and I better do something about it. My nurse and midwife training kicked in and did nothing to alleviate my fears at this time. They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I agree – my time was spent thinking up the worst possible things that could be wrong with me – cancer, MS, you name it, I had it. Luckily I also had a sensible and helpful GP who sorted out an MRI scan and consultant referral. There followed a bit of spinal surgery and job done I was, as my niece would say, sorted! That is, apart from the leg.
Now my lovely consultant told me that he could fix me but that he might not be able to get rid of the pain in my back. That’s fine I thought – I haven’t got any now so no worries on that front.
And that is how I discovered that my right leg had other ideas. The top half of my thigh decided to go numb and to stay numb. My foot decided that no, it didn’t particularly want to keep up with the rest of me and if it wanted to point in a slightly different direction, well why not? Gradually me and the leg settled into our new life together. We didn’t make great demands of each other and we got along fine.
Fast forward three years and I was back running. Not very regularly but there were occasional bursts of energy and enthusiasm which resulted in ‘a run’. Now, I’ve never been a particularly fast runner – more prone to the tortoise approach than that of the hare. But I had managed to start, and finish, a few half marathons and I never gave up the idea of doing another one at some point.
And so to my first moment of madness. Me and the leg signed up for the Bath Half Marathon last year. This did come as a bit of a surprise to the leg as it had thought that we were over that kind of nonsense some time ago and didn’t really see the sense in starting it all up again. But I did manage to persuade the leg that it was worth a go. Anyone who has ever signed up for a March race will know that means winter training. Dark mornings, dark evenings, thermal gear along with cold wet weather became the norm and it was often a struggle just to get out of the door. The leg was seriously unimpressed. But we persevered and by the time March came we were definitely race ready. And then disaster struck. It began to snow and it kept on snowing. This resulted in huge mixed emotions. Part of me wanted the race to be cancelled. Our village was cut off and no one was going anywhere, I couldn’t get out, the race route was covered in snow, how on earth was I going to start, never mind finish the race? Then I thought of all that training, how good I felt when I ran, how much willpower had gone into getting this far and I so wanted the race to go ahead.
In the event, the decision was made for me and the organisers cancelled the race. Again I had mixed emotions, relief, disappointment and frustration. I realised that I really wanted to run that race and I know that, whilst I was relieved that it was cancelled, if it had gone ahead I would have got to the start line and I would have finished that race because that was what I had committed to do. That had been my goal and I wanted to achieve it.
It would have been easy at that stage to say ‘ah well we gave it our best shot’ and just hang up the running shoes. That would certainly have made the leg happy but I realised that was not what I wanted. So within days there I was signing up for the Swansea Half. The leg and I trained hard, got to the start line and despite the soaring heat, we even managed to get to the finish in a very respectable time. We were so pleased with ourselves that we decided that the Dublin half looked like fun. Roll on September!
Helen Rogers Coaching 