The evening before a 16 miles run.

.... So last week I was a little poorly for a couple of days. But I soon recovered and ran 10 miles on the Friday with Amy, followed by six on Sunday. Tuesday we ran a fast 5 miler which felt great. Last evening (Thursday) I joined the other Hospice runners, Amanda, Jo, Paul, Duncan, Alex and Kevin our trainer. I ran with Paul and Alex and boy, was that hard work. We only ran about 6 miles but at a faster pace than I'm used to. Although Paul kindly kept checking I was OK, I was determined to keep going and keep up with them. It did push me out of my comfort zone and there were times when I wasn't sure whether I could keep up with them, I was delighted to finish and know I had done a different sort of run. It was also great to hear about Paul's experience of the Marathon last year, and his reasons for doing it again this year.
Amanda and Jo are doing really well with their mileage, and their fundraising efforts.
Duncan's partner is expecting a baby next week and yet he remains focused on his training too. It really helps meeting up and hearing about everyone's training experiences and what motivates them for this 'marathon' task.
On Saturday 1st March the group are going to run from Tesco to Tesco via a specific route outlined by Kevin. We will start at 9 am in Brightlingsea and see where we get to. The aim is to combine a long run with some fundraising.
Talking about fundraising, Amy has a quiz night planned for tomorrow night at Great Bentley Community Centre. It's £3.50 per person to take part and promises to be a really good night. She has worked really hard to secure some fantastic raffle prizes and has invested a lot of time and planning to make it a really succesful event.


Tomorrow morning at 8.30am Amy and I will be running 16 miles along the Clacton, Frinton front. I was a little worried at seeing 'windy' on the forecast - windy inland is one thing - on the front at Clacton is quite a different thing! If only it would change direction with us!
I received confirmation of where we are staying the night before the Marathon today and this starts to make it all very real.

To change subject for a bit, I attended a study day today at Trinity Hospice, Clapham. It was run by the Creative Response, a sub group of the British Association of Art Therapists, representing Art Therapists working in Specialist Palliative Care. When I began writing this blog, part of the reason was to discuss art therapy at the Hospice. However, I have found this difficult to do. I am so mindful of the individuals I see and of respecting their therapeutic space that talking directly about my practice as an art therapist seemed too problematic. Today's study day was focused on the role of audit in art therapy and led to some really interesting discussions about how we as a profession share and communicate about what it is we do. The other day Tim, our IT guy said he had been reading the numerous articles about art therapy on our office wall. He admitted that he hadn't realised that art therapy was a formal pshychotherapeutic intervention. I feel passionately about my job and day in and day out I see how it helps individuals express and process their feelings about their diagnosis/possible death. Today's study day helped to explore ways in which my experience in the art room with a client can be communicated to others without compromising confidentiality. This needs thinking further about and a long run is ideal for that - role on tomorrow morning!