A sprained ankle, a lost car key and a boy called Charlie

Well. What a week. It all started so well with an hour swim on Monday, a 5 mile run with Jenny on Tuesday, a rest day Wednesday and then came Thursday. I dutifully set my alarm on Weds night for silly O'clock in the morning, set out my running clothes and psyched myself up for an early Thursday morning run.

Before we continue, here's a pics of me and Jenny from Tuesday. It was fr-fr-fr-freeeeezing.

Yes, that is ice on the ground.

The lovely Jenny- she's a marathon expert!

Thursday morning arrived, I drove up the road and parked in Strelley village and set off in search of fields and open countryside whilst the sun broke through the cold, grey night clouds. I trotted off up the road, turned onto a track and was jogging along bopping to my iphone Running tracks when it all went wrong. Mud, it turns out, is slippy. Really blooming slippy. I slid like a hippo on iceskates, my left foot went under me and my ankle REALLY hurt. I then burst into tears! Literally. A muddy path, some birds merrily singing, my iPhone blaring out Queen's completely inappropriate lyrics of "Don't stop me now, I'm having a good time" and me stood on one leg crying. What a sight! I was so upset as I was just tolerating my run (all half a mile of it so far) and feeling good about my training being on track and suddenly it was all looking very bad.

I rang Matt, snivelled down the phone something about coming home and started to hobble off back up the half a mile to the car. The more I walked, the easier it felt as the initial shock wore off so I jogged slowly back to the car. Then it got worse. No blooming car key! I'd tucked my car key into my running trousers earlier and suddenly it wasn't there. Expletives uttered and decision made to jog back to sight of the incident. Stumble my way back to the mudfest and still no *insert expletive* car key. Cue second tears of the morning. Jog the same half a mile back to the car again (not such a pretty view after my 4th view of it within half an hour) and resume unhappy, rubbish game of hunt the key. After quizzing several passers by and giving my phone number to a bemused teenage boy who lives by where I'd parked in the hope his family might find said key, I call Matt again and he came to the rescue. We swopped cars (he had a child in the back of his) and when Matt went to drive off in mine he found the *insert repeat expletive* key tucked under a windscreen wiper where a kind passer by must have hidden it for me. Thank you kind stranger for not stealing my car and returning my key!

Here's a couple of "highlights" from the morning:

Fields are boring after you've seen the same one 4 times.

Slippery scene of doom

So that was the last time I ran.

Completely. Utterly. Gutted.

Ankle then swelled up, hurt more and made me sad. We went to Centre Parcs this weekend and I'd been looking forward to doing a long run round there. I say "looking forward to" but it was going to be a change of scenery, my longest run yet and it was going to keep me on track. Now I am most definitely off track again and very disappointed.

Swollen left ankle - bad times

But there is a positive. The disappointment surely translates into meaning that I actually really, really, really want to do this. I want to run this chuffing marathon even if it does nearly kill me because it'll be such an achievement for a settee-loving sloth like me and will hopefully raise lots of money for BHF.

Which brings me on to Charlie!

This is Amie and Simon....

Amie and Simon.

When Amie was pregnant with her lovely twin babies, she found out that baby boy twin had a serious heart defect. I think you can imagine that this was pretty rough news. Happily, a few months later these two arrived......

Twinnies!



Welcome to the world Phoebe and Charlie.

Throughout the pregnancy Amie and Simon had to go for repeated scans, detailed cardiac scans and meetings with paediatric cardiologists at the Glenfield General Hospital. Charlie was diagnosed with what's called an atrio-ventricular septal defect or a pretty big hole in his heart in other words. During this time specialist nurses, funded by British Heart Foundation were at every appointment with Amie, Simon, the bump and subsequently the twins.

This is Charlie more recently.....

Charlie

As you can see, Charlie is a healthy, happy boy who's the same as any other crazy toddler and likes to run around, throw his toys about, follow his Mum to the loo (why do toddlers love watching their parents wee??!)  and is particularly fond of his dummy. Except he's not quite the same as any other toddler in that next year he'll need to have major open heart surgery to close the defects. Over these last couple of years, the BHF nurses have been there for Amie, Simon, Charlie and Phoebe. They interpet all the doctor speak, remember their names, take the scariness out of the appointments by being a friendly, familiar face and as Amie put it, are just human, kind, normal, reassurring people.

So that's Charlie and his family. They need British Heart Foundation's support. At the risk of sounding cheesey, you can help BHF continue their good work and enable them to continue to support Charlie and thousands more children like Charlie with major heart conditions.

So, for a sprained ankle, a lost car key, the prospect of being behind on training and a gorgeous cutie called Charlie, please donate!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/longrunlizzy

Thanks.

Next time: back on track??