AfterwardsOne more day in Brisbane
Relative Normality
The morning after Briswich, a new marathon plan promised some structure and routine while an old set of HAA notes brought me back to why I had started.
Monday was my final full day in Brisbane before flying home to Perth.
Less than a day after the Briswich Marathon, I was already looking at another training plan. I had heard good things about Marathon Guru, so I signed up and generated an intermediate plan for the 2016 London Marathon on 24 April.
The first session would be a 10 km easy run on 11 October. I couldn’t wait.
Structure. Routine. Relative normality.
For four months my routine had been to eat, sleep, walk, plan the route and repeat. Now I was excited about a programme that told me to go out and run an easy 10 km.
While going through some old notes, I also found a summary of what HAA was meant to be. It began:
Hearts Across Australia 2015 is not just another charity run. Neither is it an attempt to set or break any records.
It is a message, a message to everyone in Australia, and beyond.
The notes went back to December 2011, when I was 143 kg, unfit, smoking, drinking and doing no exercise. I had chosen a marathon as the suitably audacious goal that would prove I really could change my life.
Thirty kilograms and three marathons later, I wanted a bigger example. Something large enough to make ordinary people sit up, take notice and believe that they could change their lives too. That became HAA.
Some of the details in those early notes had changed. They had me arriving in Brisbane in August, for a start. But the central message was still the same: an ordinary person could decide to make a change, start moving and achieve something that once seemed impossible.
There was also some excellent news from the running community back in WA. Ben Harris had won the WTF 100 miler, and Harmony Waite had put in an awesome performance while fundraising under the HAA banner alongside the event.
The participants, support crews, volunteers and organisers had all played their part in making the weekend happen. Congratulations to all of them.
The next day I would get on a plane and finally head back to Perth. For now, I had one more day in Brisbane and a 10 km easy run waiting for me on 11 October.
I couldn’t wait.