The great news was that my legs no longer ached, that was because I could no longer feel them as the freezing rain had numbed them. My face had also gone numb, which was an improvement on the stinging hail that had been driving in sideways into my face half an hour ago. I had tried experimenting with a buff over my head to ease the stinging but as it rapidly soaked through I found myself feeling like I was drowning as I tried breathing through the material eventually I just had an open face and laughed to myself as I ran on.
I was running the second Marathon of the weekend back on the Military road the R115 which crosses the Wicklow mountains. Yesterday I ran a marathon along the Grand Canal out through Kildare, it had been sunny but today the mountain weather had a mind of its own. As I carried on running the weather changed several times leaving me frozen, cold, warm, hot and back to frozen in the space of five hours. That said it was wonderful, the Wicklow national park is beautiful and although I never saw another runner (and by the looks I was getting from people in cars neither had they) there were several cyclists, one of who high fived me as we passed, both of us with big smiles on our faces.
As I ran I thought of why I was running, about the children in the Sunshine Childrens Home and about the car park at the home which was marked in yellow paint on the floor LauraLynn House, the site of where Ireland’s first children’s hospice would be built. The fact that I’m raising money for the LauraLynn foundation really helps drive me on. I thought back too to two personal heros in my life. My maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother. My grandfather had been a funny guy, a tough man who while the world was trying to kill each other in WWII he had been trying to save lives, standing on top of ladders putting out fires while the Luftwaffe dropped bombs all around him. He had been a gardener also and from him I learnt about the importance of serving society and of the value of life. My paternal grandmother had brought her family of four children up on her own after my paternal grandfather died when my father was still a baby. She was a woman of immense strength of character. From her I learnt charity, spiritual strength and the importance of family. She had no worldly goods, her entire material belongings would fit into one small case. She was very much loved by the entire family who took turns in having her live with them only sadly letting her go as we had to share her with the rest of the family. When she was 94 years old she was in Pakistan I hadn’t seen her for over a year, she was sick but no one had told me but I just knew that I wouldn’t see her in this world again. My father was going over to see her, so I wrote her a letter in which I told her what she meant to me, how much I loved her and that she was my hero. I told her that I would endeavour to live my life by the standards that she had shown me. I would be charitable and good and live an honourable life. One reason that I’m so happy to be able to raise money for the LauraLynn foundation is because it helps me to fulfil that promise I made to one of the most special people I have ever met. She read the letter on her death bed and died two days later. I felt grateful to God that I got the chance to say goodbye and make her proud.
And so run on, I have a week and a half of training left before I depart to Namibia with my loving wife Fi. In that time I intend to run four or five more marathons, three this coming weekend and two the weekend after. Its getting close and I’m looking forward to the challenge.
