Today is the Montréal Marathon and the weather gods have smiled on the crowd. 13C and sunny are lovely racing conditions, and I hope everyone toeing the line has a great race. Surprisingly, I don’t feel bad about shifting my plans and still being in my pyjamas as I write this. A leisurely Sunday morning with coffee is just fine.
It was a week or so ago when it settled with me that this weekend felt too soon to race. I wasn’t ready — mentally or physically — and I knew it. But I also wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of a fall race and began looking around for alternatives. Enter the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon virtual edition. I normally wouldn’t do a marathon this way but then nothing about this year has been normal, so my thought was, ‘Why not?’
With a shirt and 35th anniversary medal, it scratches my itch for bling. And with a window from the 1-31 October to complete the distance, it’s both far enough out for additional training and long enough to allow me to tackle it in increments that give space for me to listen to my body while I navigate radiotherapy (which I expect to start on 30 September).
No, I’m not planning on running it in just one session. Most likely I’ll break it up into 4x10k and then save the 2.2k for race day on 20 October to put a bow on it. I’m counting on not feeling too much fatigue during the first two weeks of radiotherapy to make this plan work (if you’ve been following along, it took three tries before we got a successful simulation scan done to plan my treatment 🤦🏻♀️).
Gimme a head of hair, long beautiful …
What has me equally obsessed at the moment is my hair is finally starting to grow in earnest. I cracked up my BFF this week when we were comparing Amazon carts and my list started with ‘eyebrows’! The temporary tattoos have been a staple to navigate this phase where my energy and stamina are growing, but I arguably look sicker than I did when I was still going through chemo. Without eyebrows, Gollum comes to mind when I look at selfies. This last restock of eyebrow tattoos should be my last.
Before and after. I maintain eyebrow tattoos are the best $9.99 I’ve spent on Amazon through my whole treatment.
It’s only been in the last couple of days, but I’ve noticed that my eyelashes, upper lip and eyebrows are all showing signs of making a reappearance. We’ve coming up on six weeks post final chemo infusion, so that is right on schedule. Though it’s hard to see in a mirror, I’m also growing what feels like an undercoat, soft like baby hair, and still snow white. No doubt it’s still a few weeks away before it feels like I have hair on my head again, but I’ll be fascinated to see whether it stays snow white and what texture it takes on as it makes a noticeable reappearance.
Doing what brings you joy
It’s easy to get lost in wanting to already have your legs back, for 30 minutes of running to feel easy again. Slowly, it IS starting to feel like running again. Interspersed with that is doing things that make my heart full. I’ve never been known to carry a tune for long, but I love to sing. So when Choir! Choir! Choir! came to town last week, I persuaded three of my friends to join me at Place des Arts for an epic sing-a-long in honour of Leonard Cohen’s 90th birthday. The evening was capped by filming our rendition of ‘Hallelujah.’ It was a little bit of magic that still has me smiling.
We had seats (although we spent most of the two hours on our feet singing) in the third row at PDA. Photo on the right is by fellow audience/choir member Eve Léveillé-Dutil.
Running from hysteria 
Leave a comment