LIVE FOR TODAY
Running with terminal cancer
The best way is to fill life with things to do so the bad stuff will never get a look in
Some things in life are not worth dwelling on. Not because they are unimportant, but because you can’t change the outcome and time spent worried, angry, sad or negatively emotional is just wasted time when one looks back.
Having terminal prostate cancer gives me many opportunities to dwell, but over the years I have realised that the best way to love and live life to the full is to fill it with things to do or plans so the bad stuff never gets a look in.
I have spent this week trying to find the best way to increase awareness about Prostate Cancer and hope to be sorting a tie-in with the Vanarama National League in English football. Because that will give Prostate Cancer UK and I the chance to talk about the disease at a human level, where the rubber hits the road (or ball hits the turf!) – very exciting, so watch this space.
My more immediate challenge is a 230k mountain race in Spain called Al Andalus which starts tomorrow.
It will be 40°C-plus so I have spent this week running as much as I can in the heat in the UK and having daily sessions of Bikram hot yoga (in a room heated to 40°C).
I understand that it takes only 14 days to acclimatise for the heat so I hope to get there in as good a shape as I can.
I love multi-day races as you meet so many people, many with personal challenges, so being part of a small race leads to new friendships with a lifeboat mentality about them.
That leads me back to where I started as we all can find a way to build that lifeboat in our normal lives and pull others in so that they too can share their own challenges – then everyone comes out appreciating this world more and ignoring what they can’t change.
Until next week, when I will be writing from the race, Kev