After a bad couple of days I’ve felt like I needed to continue with the story of my downward spiral into depression.
My wonderful sister had the shocking news of her breast cancer but decided there and then that she was going to give it a major battle. She was always a fighter and this was a fight she was determined to win.
Many people think their lifestyle and nutritional values go a long way towards their ability to avoid illness and diseases, this is unfortunately not true, she was a personal trainer, a ‘fitness freak’ with a serious liking for ‘clean eating’!!
Fair play to her, she was far tougher than I was or probably ever will be. After a long hard battle she was cleared of breast cancer. I think she could have given the doctors a run for their money with all her knowledge she gained from studying every single detail regarding cancer, chemotherapy, survival rates and anything else she could research. If someone said they’d heard about anything that may help then she was on it!
A short while later she was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. I dread to think how she felt but my world started to crumble yet again, she had two perfect (or nearly perfect) kids and a wonderful loving supportive husband, I did and still do, think he was so good, I was in awe of him and how well he stepped up, I felt I was wading through treacle and couldn’t seem to do anything.
I’d started doing a bit of running, I used the NHS couch to 5k app and found it therapeutic and enjoyable. I’d say I became addicted to running, I did the 5k eventually and signed up to run the MK Festival of Running 10k, it was hard but I completed it and gained my first medal, a day later I signed up for the MK half marathon. I still remember the day, at the 7 mile marker I thought ‘what the f*** have I done?’ It was thinking about my little sis and what she was going through, I remember thinking if she can put up with the pain and discomfort she was enduring then I could surely suffer for a few hours! The 2nd of many running medals soon came along.
I then decided I’d enter the Virgin London Marathon and try and raise money for a cancer charity. When the ballot was drawn I wasn’t lucky enough to get a place, it was a week or so later when I was offered a place by Breast Cancer Now, must have been an omen, half of me was ecstatic to get a place and the other half thought ‘what a twat, it’s miles!’ A lot of jogging and training in between running a transport company and visiting my sister I managed to clock up a best run of 13.1 miles in the Silverstone Half Marathon (another cool medal), I read about everybody else’s training and realised I should’ve been up around the 20mile mark. Oops! Panic set in, I started looking for excuses and reasons so that I didn’t have to do it. My sisters health deteriorated so not running was no longer an option. The day approached, the 24th April 2016, the day I was dreading, then not long after midnight I got a call from my brother in law saying she had passed away. Devastated is an understatement, a decision had to be made, run or not, many people said I didn’t need to do it, she was looking down on me saying ‘if you don’t do it I’ll kick your f****** teeth in!’ I don’t remember much of the day, not even running around the Cutty Sark! I do remember the pain I was feeling and how much the memory of my sister pushed me on.
6 hours 1 minute 13 seconds
I crossed the line and just burst into tears, I’d made it but she wasn’t there to see or hear me brag about it, she would’ve been looking down thinking well done but I’ve still stolen your thunder! We were always quite competitive.
My health, well being, mental being and motivation was sliding further down, the following years marathon was a reminder of that awful day, if I remember correctly, that years chosen charity was Mind, I was listening to the Royals, William, Kate and Harry explaining why they were involved, for a few minutes a cried, cried some more and thought I may need some help, I decided to revert back to my own defence mechanism!
This has been extremely hard to write and most of me would like to share it with everyone, part of me would like to keep it quiet, go into my own world, and a very small part of me thinks ‘what’s the point of going on?’
I’m going to leave it there for now and then I’d like to explain how my recovery got started, how it’s going now and what I’m looking forward to…
Steve Braim 