Will London ever be home??

The house hunt continues.  As it is now, living with my strange Russian lady means that I spend the majority of time staring at my four bedroom walls, feeling like I’ve been incarcerated for some grievious crime. What I had hoped would be a temporary arrangements has now led to over four month househunting, endless amounts of hours trawling through websites and viewings nearly every evening. Despite my best efforts, I haven’t found anywhere to lay my hat. I don’t want for much, just some friendly housemates, a relatively clean kitchen, and somewhere which I can come home to after work and really relax.

So far anything with potential has been extortionately priced and any property within my budget is far from habitable. I have seen cupboards with no windows, rooms with damp and mould rising up the walls, I even saw one apartment which had such a strong smell that I couldn’t breath. I had to run out after two minutes in there so that I could get some air, leaving the current housemate looking somewhat perplexed. The living arrangements in this particular apartment were made even more interesting by the fact that my potential housemate slept in the kitchen!

Then finally, last week I found a brilliant house in a prime location. The room that I viewed was a generous size and the house even had a pool table and a sofa bed. I had already fallen in love by the time I met the gang of housemates living there and they were great too! By the time I had walked out the door I knew I had found my knew home and quickly got in touch to say that I would take the room. However, it was not to be. The current tenants chose someone else for the room so the search goes on.

Last year when I lived in Surrey, I found myself taking frequent trips home. Sometimes for weddings and parties and sometimes just for the fun of it to catch up with friends and family. This year, I have only really been home once which is a stark contrast. I’m not one to get homesick but last year I would have found myself longing to go home for the catchups and the nights out but now that I am in London, it is enough for me to spend a weekend in Haslemere to feel contented. It was on acknowledging this that I realised that home is not a physical place or a point on the map. Instead, home is wherever you are surrounded by people you love and who love you back. That’s not to say that Ireland is not my home now. It always will be so long as my family and friends are there. I simply have been lucky enough to have been adopted by another family who I love just as much as my biological one,

London Living

I think anyone who has read my previous blog posts will know that for the past few months my entire life has revolved around running, fitness and diet. Now that I have completed the London2Brighton challenge it’s time to start experiencing London Life. Having moved from sleepy Surrey in March it is now time to start maximising on everything that London has to offer.

But where does a newbie like me start? I don’t know many people so how do I start to build my social circle? The best piece of advice I have been given is ‘to say no to nothing,’ within reason of course. So since finishing my race three weeks ago I have gone back to Ireland, went on a random late night road trip to Letterkenny, a dinner dance and a boat rally, a girls night out, a wedding in Malta, a John Mayer concert and the races. For the week ahead, I have some flat viewings, a date and a nandos with a gal pal. Not bad seeing as it’s only Monday!

The main aim for now is to sort out my living arrangements. London is my new home but  where I am staying at the moment is definitely not. As a 23 year old in a new city, living in a house with a peculiar 60 year old cat lady is not quite the social mecca I had anticipated, in fact visitors are banned from the house. Even I, that pays a hefty sum to live there, only have access to my bedroom, the bathroom and the very uninviting kitchen area. Hopefully that will all have changed by the end of the month. Spareroom.com is permanently opened in a seperate tab and many more favourable living arrangements are to be explored in the next few weeks.

So the city is my oyster. Stay tuned to see if a small town Irish girl can survive the big city unscathed…..

They think it’s all over….it is now!

So here I am, back in my uniform and back at my desk, hungover and depressed. For the past two weeks I have been on an absolute high and I can’t quite pinpoint whether this is due to the sense of achievement after completing the London2Brighton challenge or the toxic amount of vodka and redbull that I have consumed in the meantime!! But I can now say that I have done the London2Brighton Challenge! Heck, I even got the tshirt! It was one of the toughest,most gruelling, longest most emotional, painful and enjoyable day of my life.

At 7am, on my 23rd Birthday, I entered the starting pen with the first group of walkers. The support of the crowd and adrenalin meant that I took off at a canter. I started to overtake people and gather momentum. It seemed that I was much more competitive than I ever knew. I overtook pretty much everyone in my group and found myself catching up with the final group of runners who had left twenty minutes before me. This all seemed extremely surreal to me as an athletic newbie but amazingly I held this pace for almost 30km. After 30km, I reined in my competitiveness knowing that I had to retain some energy for the rest of the course. I kept a fast marching pace until I reached the halfway point at Cully’s farm in Crawley. By this stage a niggling pain in my knee made me go straight to the first aid tent. Most of my comrades were hobbling in to have blisters treated, thankfully I wasn’t having any trouble with blisters but knew that my right knee had the potential to cause me some major difficulties in the 44km ahead.  Unfortunately my visit to the first aid tent wasn’t very fortuitous with my “first aider” refusing to strap my knee and applying ice instead which provided temporary relief to a major problem. Sheer grit and determination made me continue and I kept a strong pace. There is no feeling more satisfying than passing people out after 60 and 70 kilometres. Regular messages of support and donations coming through on my phone kept my spirits boosted. Despite the fact that I could feel a mix of emotions bubbling under the surface.

At 70km, I fell into pace with a guy named Ian who asked if I minded some company. At this stage I had run out of songs to sing and conversations to have with myself so company was warmly welcomed. Having someone to chat to made the next few kilometres slip by much easier, but my knee was really starting to give trouble. At 88km, tired and by now in considerable pain, I found myself sitting in a portaloo crying. All the while chastising myself for the fact that crying would make me more dehydrated! I knew that the toughest part of the course was just ahead of me, with an arduous 3km climb just ahead. For the first time that day, failure and not finishing was a very possible option. If it had not been for Ian’s encouragement I would not have continued and would probably have kicked myself forever after. This was Ian’s second attempt at the London2Brighton challenge. He dropped out at 56km last year due to injury. I knew there was no way I could even consider putting myself through all this again so with Ian’s help I continued. By this stage we were in darkness which mentally helped as I couldn’t see the scale of the mountain I was climbing.

By 91km I was in serious trouble. Every step was painful but my determination grew. My aim being to make the first aid tent at 94km. When we finally got there, Ian and I parted ways. He needed to continue on towards the finish line where his lift was waiting and I needed to get my knee strapped in order to continue. I never got Ian’s surname but  his kindness and support to me was beyond anything I could have ever imagined from a complete stranger. Thankfully this time around, the first aider agreed to strap up my knee. However her efforts were not much help considering she strapped my knee so tightly that I had to undo it entirely and re do it myself in order to be able to walk.

For the last 6km I was utterly exhausted. The lights of Brighton appeared to become further away rather than closer. My mind started playing tricks on me. I saw figures in the shadows but was too tired to be afraid. Eventually I began to hear the music from the Brighton nightclubs and street lights came into view. As I approached the 99km marker, a new fight rose within me (that and an overwhelming need to pee). Eventually the finish line came into sight and as I walked up Brighton race course, I found myself beginning to overtake people again. The need for a portaloo pushing me forwards. As I crossed the finish line, and made for the portaloos, the sense of relief, both physical and emotional was overwhelming.   

I called for a taxi and at 4.30am finally made it back to bed, 24 hours after I had left it. Two hours later, I was up. The pain throughout my body meant that sleep was not an option and my right knee was completely out of action. Blankets were too heavy on my legs and I had to use my arms to move position.

After a week or more on crutches, I can now pretty much walk again. But the feeling of satisfaction and achievement has been well worth the struggle. Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me raise £1,500 for the Dan Eley Foundation. I know alot of my friends, especially in Ireland, were completely unaware of the work they do so your support is particularly appreciated!

Thanks to everyone who sent me snapchats and messages along the way. They kept me going. To Mark for his advice prior to, during and after the big day and to Lizzie, Dan and all my adopted family who looked after me in my fragile state in the days afterwards and finally to Ian, who is hugely responsible for me finishing at all. Thank you!!

Now to get back to normal life and stop annoying you all with silly blog posts!! 🙂

 

xxxx