Karen writes: Our aims...

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We have a couple of aims for writing this blog.   As more…ah…mature…women we have re-discovered how much fun we can have being fit, and achieving the sorts of goals we wouldn’t have even looked at a short time ago.  We can now say (much to others disbelief) that we are ‘marathoners’, ‘triathletes’, ‘runners’, ‘cyclists’, and…this is really cool…walk into a sports shop and have the assistant who used to look the other way, now pretend to take us seriously, because we almost SOUND like we know what we are talking about!  We want to encourage others to take on their own impossible journey too and have as much fun (suffering?) as we are.

Our biggest aim is of course fundraising for the Christchurch Diabetes Service which is a very powerful incentive, keeping us going on the long slow buildup to this, the biggest event of our lives. The Christchurch Diabetes Service have had a very hard time since September 2010 when the first unexpected earthquake occurred causing major devastation.  They have since had to deal with ongoing aftershocks which continue to damage significant parts of Christchurch city and make the lives of many Cantabrians very hard.  The story of how the diabetes team and the local volunteer service, Diabetes NZ Christchurch, coped with keeping themselves and their people with diabetes going when their own lives were in crisis is just amazing.  

Karen and Kate at 2011 Rotorua Marathon
We also admit to other motivations though...we want, as unlikely athletes, to have a new title, that of ‘ironman’,  we want to hear the "you are an ironman" called out for us as we cross the finish line.  Kate also thinks ironman jewelry is a fitting reward, but my secret motivation is that I want the tattoo.  While running  this years Rotorua marathon I envied those who had the ironman logo transfer on their calves as they ran and I thought “I so want that to be ME”….   Then I thought, “oh hell, I shall have to swim 4km, cycle 180km, then do what I am struggling with right now, run the 42km…not possible”.   


But it is possible of course, we want to do something for our colleagues and their patients in Christchurch, there are many amazing people who have taken this journey (see our link to Heidi-Jane for example), and of course we have told too many people of our own plans to back out now!

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