Humbled ………..
The MDS is an ultra demanding race , an insane test of a mans endurance , hence you need to fulfil an insane training schedule , you build it up over months of hard work , you condition yourself to running 30+ miles a day and recovering to go again the next morning …
When you knock out the amount of training I’ve been doing you tend to go into solitary mode , you have to train mostly on your own , there is no one else out there doing the sheer volume and distance .. normal recreational runners cannot even get close to appreciate just what its like, running two times a day 130+ miles a week .. the mornings , evening and weekends are taken up , I’ve been fortunate enough to run with 2 or 3 different groups of people , everyone doing their own thing and everybody great company but still I spend most of my long runs and morning runs on my own ….. I often feel that I put all this work in and no one even notices , no-one really cares or gives me a little slack because of it , my mother moans because I am five minutes late getting to hers after a run , does she know how much effort I put in just to get up and out the door to do that run, just how important it is that I do not miss it !!! , one of my friends just blanks me off when I start to tell him of a beautiful route I just ran over the hills , people really are ignorant to how much work I am putting in , and this blog , you’ve no idea of the amount of my friends who can’t even be bothered to have a read of my blog , yet I listen to their stories of Saturday night benders patiently ,bloody hell !!! don’t they realise how important this is !!!!! I write this tongue in cheek because of course I know that its only of great importance to me , I am not so self-absorbed as to realise that in the grand scheme of life this is not important at all , and everything I do is ultimately for myself and not for self recognition , haha amongst my friends you are never going to get to carried away before being dragged back to earth 😀 , but I do want people to be aware of what I do and hopefully this awareness raises money for the Borders MS Society , in a way I bastardise myself for this goal but it cannot be done without it , you can’t raise money without engaging people interest. I like to think I give something back to the people who may give to me.
I have went about my business for 20 years with no desire for recognition or appreciation and most of my “achievements” are known only to a few and the sports I inhabit are ones where really only the people directly involved will understand and appreciate what I have done ,indeed they are sports full of performers who do it under the radar because that’s the way we like it but even so when I am sent a link from a website by a renowned fellow adventurer who understands whats going on and has taken some time to show his appreciation of what I am doing and help raise awareness to my cause then I am seriously humbled ……
http://adrianshanahan.com/wordpress/index.php/2011/03/some-kayakers-do-amazing-things/
Thank you Mr Shanahan …
“ 🙂 .. Im still thinking it reads more serious than I mean it to .. what the hell … Im feeling kind of unstable , its the taper madness .. lol ”
Mark …..1 week before MDS , suffering from full blown taper madness ..