Sydney Half-Marathon, here I come.

Did I hear myself right? Half-Marathon. Ha? Half-Marathon. Come again? 21km. Eeeek.

So what led me to this crazy decision in the first place?

I’ve recently managed to face and conquer one of my biggest fears. Swimming in the ocean waters of Australia. Those waters where sharks regularly hang out, and where waves can pound you like mince - and then leave you for the sharks. Obviously this is exaggerating reality, because if it were a reality, Sydney beaches wouldn’t be so packed. So therefore, this fear is “all in my head” as my mother would say. 

To have lived in Australia for nearly four years, and to only have gone swimming at the beach five times during that period, is shameful to say the least.  To think that someday I could be back living in Ireland, looking out at a cold Bettystown Beach thinking, “I’d love to be swimming at the beach in Sydney instead”. Something had to be done. But I needed help. And that help came in the form of CANTOO http://www.cantoo.org.au/, a charity group that raises funds for Cure Cancer Australia http://www.curecancer.org.au/. They cleverly recruit willing participants to help them fundraise, and in return, they help them to achieve their goals. As with most families, our extended family has been affected many times by this aggressive illness. As a Crohns disease sufferer, I’m also aware that illness can creep out of nowhere and affect anyone at anytime. Finding a cure for cancer is an indisputable must, but the funds are needed first.

The CANTOO swim programme lasted 12 weeks. The wonderful coaches and co-swimmers helped me progress from a panic-stricken jellyfish to a 1km racing dolphin. I came 21st out of 280 swimmers in the 1km female open race. Not a shark in sight! Not only that but I managed to raise $1500 for Cure Cancer Australia, contributing to the cost of a cancer researcher, in their own race to find a cure for cancer.

After that achievement, I wanted a new goal. To raise more funds and this time learn how to run. While the swim programme helped me to face my fear of the ocean, swimming wasn’t new to me. As a teenager, I trained with the local swimming club and loved it. But, I never ran. Even at school P.E. classes, I couldn’t run. I did try - but I concluded I was a swimmer, not a runner and there was no point making a fool of myself in the running track any longer. It’s possible that on one occasion, under the duress of the P.E. teacher’s insistence, I may have run 400m. But I wouldn’t put money on it. It was a case of ‘if I’m not good at it, then I give up’.

Ironically, at 30 - my mentality is now ‘if I’m not good at it, why not?’. The past couple of years, and especially the CANTOO swim journey, have shown me that you achieve anything if you set your mind to it. I’m thinking that all sounds like an easier decision and transition than it was. At a lower level, it involved a few beers with my CANTOO swimming team captain Nat and a pledge to run the Sydney Half-Marathon with her. A few days later this was followed by a chickening out moment after Dave kindly informed me that 21km was a “bloody long way”. I believe there was also a mention of me “not being one to be pushed”. I dwelt on this for a while before I ceded to the negative voices in my head.  

Luckily, Nat knows the (healthy!) competitive relationship that Dave and I have and suggested I enter anyway, just to prove him wrong. So here I am. Proving Dave wrong. I must remember this every time I feel like pulling out of the programme... What a motivation!

So that’s the clincher. Signing up to training for the Sydney Half-Marathon, on May 15th 2011, is one thing. Signing up through CANTOO is another. By committing to the fundraising pledge of $1250, I can’t pull out. It just wouldn’t be right. I wouldn’t just let myself down. And that’s exactly why CANTOO is such a successful programme. Everyone wins.

So if you want to help me along this journey, either through donations http://www.cantoo.org.au/Sponsor-a-Participant.html or emotional support (gmail, facebook, blogspot comments, phonecalls), I would be very grateful.

Watch out for my training updates - I’ll try to keep them short!


You must do the things you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt