but you will overcome them to succeed. So said four times Ironman Triathlon World Champion Chrissie Wellington in her article in February's 220 Triathlon Magazine.
Undoubtedly a lady who knows what suffering truly is having in her words 'reached to the depths of her soul' to win her fourth world title in a sport which makes marathon running look positively wimpy. Completing a 2.2 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a full marathon one after the other in less than 8 hours and 30 minutes takes courage, training, mental toughness and the overwhelming desire to succeed.
I feel slightly humbled by Chrissie, who is also a really nice person, because I'm doing exactly half those distances in August to raise money for the Meningitis Trust. The hurdles I have overcome to just reach the point where I am a ten year survivor of viral meningitis seem just as big to me as those which faced Chrissie at the start of her Ironman career and then I have ramped them all up another notch by taking on a half Ironman to stick two fingers up to a disease which has permanently changed my life.
Just when you think the hurdles don't get any bigger or tougher another one pops up just to remind me I am probably not a natural athlete. I have a suspected stress fracture of my left first metatarsal, my foot hurts in other words. I won't have a positive diagnosis for a few days but it means I can't run for around 6 weeks and possibly 12 depending on how it recovers. If I'm lucky it'll be a ligament injury so fingers crossed. In the same way my neurologist told me if I had been lucky I would have had shingles and unlucky I would get viral meningitis. I was unlucky! Maybe I'm unlucky suffering a stress fracture or maybe this is just another test to see whether I'm going to keep going in the face of yet another setback?
Whilst Chrissie Wellington chose her challenge and it was on her terms; for those of us that are struck with meningitis we don't have that luxury but the desire to overcome, to keep going, to stick two fingers up to pain and succeed in whatever small way we can is the same.
Whilst it will probably take me as long as Chrissie does a full Ironman just to get round half the distances for me, my stress fracture and meningitis it will be just as much of a triumph as conquering the world for the fourth time.
