Life is tough, but so are you.....

I am 39 years old. I've never been confident about my body or my physical abilities. I've never been sporty. I've never owned a bikini. I was never good at PE and it's the only part of school that I look back on and remember, as clear as day, that all-consuming feeling of inadequacy. That was just me. 

In 2011 something else happened to me. Your thyroid is a tiny little gland which plays a huge role in how your body functions. It regulates your metabolism and without it you gain weight and feel sluggish and fatigued. The thyroid gland also controls the chemical messengers that your brain uses to communicate with your nerves. Without it the messengers go all over the place leading to depression and anxiety. Sometimes the thyroid gland slows down. Mine is defunct. Completely gone. No thyroid function at all. 

Me in 2011

So here I am in 2016. With some determination of my own and a lot of help and support from the wonderful people around me, I now cycle, I run, I go to the gym, I eat healthily and more importantly, I'm happy and confident. I've filled that void. The one that grew and consumed me in young adulthood.

I sometimes feel judged for the choices that I make now. It's a funny thing. I find that really hard but I put it all out there for the sake of the stronger feelings. The positive ones. On top of combating all of my symptoms of Hypothyroidism and actually getting good at lifting weights, running and cycling, I can also help others. I can help friends who feel like I did. I can encourage the struggling nine year old girl who thinks she can't do it at Parkrun to run to the finish with us. I can help all of those people who think that they can't do it, or don't know how to. I can show the nervous new girl at the gym how to do a dead lift. 

Most of all though, I can give everything I have to being a role model for you. You run because I run and your competitive spirit is fierce. You are determined and brilliant and I want to keep fuelling that for as long as I can. If I don't believe in myself then you won't believe in yourself. If I reach for the stars, then you will too. You can do whatever you want to sweetheart and, as I have learnt along the way, so can I. 

You completed your 21st Junior Parkrun today. You finally got your marathon wristband baby x 

"Though she be but little, she is fierce!" ~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Mother's Day, Italy, cycling and dreams

You It was Mother's Day last Sunday. You were at your cousins' house for the day. Looking out of the garden room that morning at the snowdrops and the blackbird building a nest, I felt a pang of sadness that we weren't together. We spend every weekend together though and I knew that this little adventure would be good for you, and me. 

I don't want to just work, pay for things and exist but to really live each moment. It may be that we can't have fancy expensive holidays but I promise that, instead, we'll do the things that we really want to do. This summer we'll have a rustic Italian mountain adventure. We'll pack up the car and drive all the way across Europe with our closest friends taking in all of the sights and sounds along the way. We'll stop at alpine cafes. We'll cross mountain passes. We'll stay in pretty towns and we'll BBQ under the Italian mountain stars when we arrive. Real life and real places.

http://www.myfamilyandabruzzo.com/?m=1 (Auntie Lulu's blog about where we're going) 

You and Alfie will love your summer holiday together (not forgetting little Ralph)

We may not be together for every moment but I want to be one of the lead characters in your book. To inspire you to live. Which means that I should live my life, not just dream it, spending a little bit of time apart so that we can grow together in different ways. 

My adventure last weekend with the Women's Eastern Racing League

And home again

Today it's just you and me. You're chatting to yourself in the next room making up adventures for your toys to live. Make space for your own adventures too sweetie, and don't ever be scared to embark on them. They'll always be worth it. 

My beautiful little girl with a head full of dreams

My fitness journey....

As you go through life, everyone will tell you, exercise is healthy, eat well, don't drink too much alcohol, don't smoke....I'll say all that stuff to you. I'm your Mummy, it's what we do. 

You'll probably ignore me. You're a kid, that's what you do! So, I want to tell you what journey your Mummy has been on in the last year or so. There are some reasons (I have 5 for you) to listen to some of that stuff and to live a bit more healthily. Real reasons. Not just because everyone says so. 

In the last year I have focused on health and fitness in a way that I never have done before. I eat well and pay attention to nutrition. I've (almost) completely cut out alcohol. I sleep well and train hard. Here's why it's been so amazing... 

1. I have, literally, never felt good about myself. At 37, I do now. That should be reason enough but I did promise 5.

2. I have met some wonderful people who have inspired me to aim higher, to push myself, to do good, to never say "I don't have time." Brilliant Mums who work full-time and still make time to improve themselves & stay healthy. People who want to help others to improve and are always sharing and teaching. Young people with motivation and drive. People who inspire others and work together. People I'm proud to know. 

3. This is a girly one and it sounds shallow but it makes me happy. I have always loved fashion, but on other people. I can finally enjoy it on me. It is a big motivation to stay strong and keep training hard. I just keep my eye on the dresses!

“Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” ~ Coco Chanel

4. I love the improvement and gains I've made and continue to make. Physically I see changes every day. I'm stronger, leaner and so much fitter than I was. A year ago I could only just bike 2 miles, couldn't move a 10kg weight and couldn't do a press up for toffee. Now I've completed a 100 mile hilly sportive, I train at the gym 3 times a week, I can do 20 proper press-ups and I do 5k runs for fun! 

Post 5k Parkrun cuddle

5. I feel more alive than I have in years. I do this for me, for those 4 reasons above. But I also do it for you. To inspire you to push yourself and to show you that it's normal for girls to run, cycle and lift weights. I love the interest you show in everything I do and want to channel and nurture that interest for as long as you'll listen to me!

With your toilet roll dumbells!

This weekend I'm running a 5km Spartan Race with some of the people I've mentioned above. I am terrified and excited in equal measures. We'll get round, one way or another, and I'm proud of the whole team already. Wish Mummy luck darling. I think she'll need it!

“A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.” ~ A A Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Being your mummy...

"Mummy, I am the goodest kid you ever saw, am I Mummy?" 

I fell off a cliff in slow motion the day I met you. From that moment onwards, how I felt about you became the single, biggest uncontrollable force in my life. Every day I try hard to balance out that overwhelming emotion so as not to smother you. I constantly remind myself that I'm important, but so is your independence. I want to give you room to breathe, room to be. And, if something took me away tomorrow, I need to know that you'd be ok. 

Molly Rose High ~ October 2010

I haven't enjoyed all of the stages of helping you to be independent but something undefinable inside of me tells me that it's the right thing. As parents, that undefinable voice inside is all we really have to guide us. Leaving you to grizzle a bit when you were a baby wasn't always the most natural thing to do but it was right. You're learning to be independent and I'm here, like the bumpers at the edge of the bowling alley, for you to bounce off and then carry on in the right direction. We're doing ok. You are a content and caring child with a big imagination and an even bigger heart and I am very proud of you.

I have to leave your sad little face to go to work. Or deflect your disappointment when you realise that I am going out on my bike. The corners of your mouth switch to being dramatically down turned. It is painful, but only superficially. You don't spend the time I'm away crying yourself to sleep or pressed up against the window. You go to school, you play, you see your friends, you go swimming. I do my thing, and you do yours. I come home and we spend time together. This stuff is fundamentally important to you and to me. It helps us to be stronger people, for each other.

Us ~ Summer 2014

You called me "my pretty Mummy" in my new dress today. That made me happy. Always remember sweetheart, behind your story is mine, and behind mine is my Mummy's and behind her's is her Mummy's. It's where we all began. 

Me and my Mummy ~ 1977

I completed my first 100 mile sportive last month. I cycled further than I ever have done and the sense of achievement was huge. The best bit, for me though, was seeing you on your little chair by the side of the road at 25 miles in shouting "go Mummy!" It was just the best feeling in the world. It's easy to be your Mummy, that's nature. But to inspire you, to equip you to deal with life and to make you proud of me, that takes some work.

Sleep tight baby.

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will." ~ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

My Journey on Two Wheels

Well, it is 2014 and your Mummy has changed quite a bit over the past 12 months. After I had you my Thyroid (a strange but, seemingly, important gland which controls, I've learnt, pretty much everything) broke. I got fat and I wasn't very happy for a while. I had also made it all the way to 35 without ever having done any exercise. That was just me. I didn't like sport. I liked fashion, literature and art. But I suddenly realised that almost as much as I liked those things, I also didn't like being fat.

So, I went on a diet and lost a bit of weight (which I'd done before) but it was hard and boring and unsustainable. It wasn't going to change a lifetime of feeling fat and not moving more than I needed to. Your Daddy was pretty keen on cycling. I was mildly interested in the Tour de France and loved the Giro D'Italia (mainly because I love Italy, but the cycling was creeping into my psyche as well).

2009 Giro D'Italia

So, about a year ago, I got a pretty blue Pendleton and started pootling around our village. I just needed a bunch of gerberas in my basket and the image would be complete! On my first time out I did 1.5 miles and nearly passed out. After about a week, heart rate back to normal and I was good to go again. After that I went out a few times a week, scared of roads..and cars..and pigeons..and combine harvesters..and very unfit. I worked up to about 5 miles involving going 4 times around the block and sometimes venturing to the edges of the village, where the hills began, and then turning around and coming home again.

Me & my Pendleton, Summer 2013

Then you and Daddy went out and got me a Giant road bike as a surprise. Your little face was a picture as you shook with excitement and told me you had something to show me. Things had got serious. No basket for gerberas on this machine, although I still think that may work....

I bought myself a turbo trainer to try and get fitter as the nights drew in and winter arrived. I built up from 5 miles to 10 miles and learnt interval training techniques from the 3LC Road Race DVD. My fitness had increased so much that I managed to complete the DVD (in a sea of sweat and tears) which was quite some achievement, for an ex-fat girl who hated all sport.

Me & you after a hard turbo training session, Feb 2014

Then at Christmas time we went for a ride around where I grew up in Norwich. I managed 20 miles. 20 MILES! ME?! I felt a huge sense of achievement. I am still doing the turbo training and toying with entering the Newmarket Hilly 100 event in the summer. I am not sure if that isn't a little ambitious but we all need goals! I took a very rare day off work this week to try and cycle a hilly 50 mile route to see how I got on. Your Daddy came with me to make sure I didn't die (or get lost which was more likely). It was probably the hardest thing I have ever done (apart from giving birth to you!) but I did it. I was nearly sick on two hills and got over emotional and nearly cried at the end but....I wasn't actually sick and didn't actually cry so, all in all, a success. I (and everyone who knows me) would never have believed it would have been possible.

My constant motivation

So, you might say that cycling has changed my life. It has certainly changed my health and fitness. I have a new respect for professional cyclists. The hard work, dedication, motivation and discipline that they have to have in bucketloads to do what they do is inspirational. I am going to work hard to try and do the 100 mile event. If not this year....maybe next year....and I look forward to the day when you will be able to ride along beside me, with flowers in your basket. 

Before my epic 50 miler this week 

I love you always.