Life is like a box of chocolates

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Well. Chocolate you'd hope. If you pulled out an orange, I'm not sure how you'd feel about that. Unless it was a chocolate orange, I guess. That would be alright.

Life is more like a washing machine. You put a neat little pile of stuff in, all in your own nice little order, then it gets mixed up, turned upside down, pummeled, and every so often, you loose a sock. The favourite sock I lost recently was my Granny, who passed away after a fight with cancer. 

She left instructions that we weren't to be too sad. For the first few days, this advice seems pretty daft. How can you not be sad! But then grieving someone involves thinking about them a lot, and when thinking a lot about someone who was fabulous, you can't help but be uplifted by it, as if simply the force of the thought of their energy is enough for it to still feel like they are here.

My Granny was a very inspirational person. In the last few years, she had a rough time with different bits and pieces going wrong. She said that she didn't mind dying. She said she had done all of the things that she wanted to do in her life, she had had a great time, and now she was happy to sit and enjoy all her memories, but as there was nothing left that she wished she'd done, if her time was up, then she was fine with that. 

Which I think is pretty amazing, to be able to say that.

I would like to be able to say the same one day. Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure my Granny didn't just wake up one day when she was 86 and have it occur to her that somehow she'd managed to do everything she wanted. I expect she put a lot of time and energy into working out what it was that she wanted and valued in life, and then going about making it happen, probably involving a lot of hard work and sacrifices on her part. So, in order to keep her energy going, I have been attempting to start this for myself. 

I haven't kept up running every day since 100 days finished. For a number of reasons, but mostly because I felt like I wasn't getting anything out of running every day any more, and was running for no reason, and not always enjoying it. Am still running several times a week, but trying to run with purpose and get something out of each run. So to help with that, I've joined Preston Harriers running club and am, for the first time in 5 years or so, doing interval training on a track. This is way out of my comfort zone in that it is both terrifying being on a track with people taking running seriously, and also in that I am not used to trying to run fast, and it hurts. But even so, I like it. 

In other news since finishing 100 Days:

• I've run a 5km PB at Preston Parkrun, beating my previous best time from 10 years ago. Ha! Who says getting older is rubbish!
• Have done two marathons (Thames Meander - where for the first time in three attempts at this race, I didn't fall over and injure myself for the next few months) and the Loch Ness Marathon (my 30th marathon), which took a wee jump to the top of my favourite marathon list, especially because my Granny loved Scotland, and it was a beautiful sunny day, and I enjoyed running around thinking about her being there having fun too.
• Am training for a 50 mile race on Saturday. Quite nervous now. Saturday only seems to be 5 days away, and 50 miles seems to be quite a long way.

But the BIGGEST most exciting and important news is that......my Aunty has gone into remission! I am so proud of her, and so happy to hear the news! She is just amazing! Wow. 

Thank you again everyone for all your support and donations to 100 days. There have been a couple of donations from people who I've not been able to contact to say thank you...so if you are reading this.....

THANK YOU!!!!