Shine Walk-a-thon

I have signed up for the Cancer Research UK Shine night walk as a way to give me focus for my gym activity and as a way to gain a healthier lifestyle.

My friends had suggested that people join them on Facebook and I have to admit I thought it would be the most natural thing in the world to walk.  How wrong I am.

I’ve been training now, trying to stick to the plans but finding that even the 10 minutes fast to slow paced walking I am doing is making me breathless.  This is when I decided to share my experiences with my blog.

I will be keeping a diary of this on here to hopefully help other not-so-fit people who have decided to do something like this.  I will walking the full marathon length, which is around 26 miles/41km.   I am not trained in any way but I am hopeful because I tend to respond well to exercise.

Why do it?

Me on radio

When I was training as a radio journalist one of my first course assignments was to find a story that interested us personally, research it, get interviews and make a package.  I had an interest in cancer research due to illness in my family and breast cancer in-particular so I went about locating interviews for my item.

I had decided to get an interview from the then Cancer Research Campaign at their offices in London.  I was nervous.  Not in a “oh I am going to kiss my boyfriend” way but more a “crap, I’ve no idea what I am doing,” kind of way.  This was my first professional setting interview and also the first time I’d handled a mini-disc pack.

During the interview I relaxed and chatted happily with the spokesperson.  Also during the interview I was told that there would be changes once the merger is complete.  I was told of the work that they do and the way the money is spent.

Hitting home

Although memorable, this was not the reason the charity sticks in my mind.  It was the second interview I conducted with a friend’s aunt that bought things home.

Finishing the 5k Race for Life

This wonderful woman had been fighting cancer for a number of years and showed me a picture of a table of tablets that she had been taking; I remember her shoulders held low and her eyes not focusing fully on me when she was explaining the pain she was in.

She had a way of saying things to me that were open and honest without making me feel uncomfortable about asking.  She explained that I would be helping her by allowing her to tell her story and too many people had felt they can’t talk about it with her.  This made her feel it was something she should hide when in-fact it isn’t and she was still the same person.  She was just ill.

I listened as she told me that she used to wake up every morning with the thought that she had army’s of blood cells in her marching towards an army of cancer cells.  She told me of how she would tell the healthy cells to fight the un-healthy cells every morning out-loud to the mirror.

This lady lived.  She reduced her medicine and felt proud of her fight that she’d had with herself.

It was a story that sticks with me to this day, not only for the vivid imagery that she gave me but more the openness of her story and the need for her to tell it.  I know that my money won’t cure the many cancers people experience; I also know there are a lot of other organisations that are extremely brilliant in their work.  I am not singling this out as the only place to help but I do feel I can help a little and, as this lady showed me, the little can sometimes mean a lot.

I will keep you posted on my progress.

You can sponsor me via our fundraising page. You can follow Shine Walk-a-thon on Facebook and Twitter @CR_UK or #shine2011