I love running alone shortly after sunrise along the scenic track on the eastern side of the River Derwent, Hobart. There are few people about and nearly all call out a greeting in passing. The air is cooler and cleaner than Sydney air. Winter can be bitingly cold but very beautiful with a dusting of snow on Mount Wellington, and more often than not the rest of the year is kind to sunrise runners.

For me, it all began in 2008. I was 57, living in Sydney – had been at least sporadically active most of my life but an unfortunate bout with a hospital super bug had left me feeling tired and unhealthy. I seemed to react badly to just about anything I ate for months, finding energy for work was difficult, and I felt as though I’d sunk into a deep hole with no way out. In desperation I joined a small gym in Mona Vale which specialized in personal training with a big emphasis on goal setting.

 My first goal was to walk the City to Surf. When the day came, I had the most fun than I’d had in months, loved the atmosphere, wanted to run too, so I ran down all the hills and along as many flat bits as I could. Bought the shirt, treasured the medal and the newspaper with my name and time in it. The boys at the gym then badgered me into coming along to their run club. The first day I turned up, the plan was to run from Mona Vale to Church Point, about 8 or 9 k there and back, I think. The leader tried to keep us more or less together by sending the faster runners off on a whole series of side loops. I was at the back, the oldest runner by far, struggling, lungs bursting, thinking “this is absolute madness, I’ll have a heart attack and at least that’s a good excuse to stop!” Strangely though, at the finish, I felt more alive than I had in ages, so I began running with the group each week.

My first actual running event was Blackmores 10 k. Many of the group were doing half and even full marathons and the boys began pushing me to enter the Sydney half. Completely hooked on running by now I went along with it and even finished with a decent time, but I was beginning to realize that there was more to training for distance runs than running “as far as you can as fast as you can,” the advice of one of the trainers.

Luckily a quick web search turned up Paceline. I contacted Susan and booked a one on one session, expecting to be told I was totally demented for thinking about long runs at my age. Instead she ran with me and gave me all the information I had been looking for on form, technique, training plans, and nutrition, plus loads of encouragement! I was really happy when she thought that running a marathon was a fine goal and invited me to attend a get together for aspiring marathon and half marathon runners and to run with her Saturday group whenever I wanted company. I found them to be a great bunch of people and looked forward to looking at the website each week to check out the map for next Saturday’s run.

Pressure at work was becoming unbearable. I’d been a violist in the Sydney Symphony for 29 years. Due to the odd working hours and the way most of my free time was consumed by practicing, playing in the orchestra was a huge part of my life. Actually, seeing as I have no relatives at all in Australia and nearly all my friends were musicians too, and I just love most of the repertoire we performed, the orchestra WAS my life. We had just returned from a tour to Italy. I’d had a wonderful time teaching myself enough Italian to get by, and exploring some gorgeous places with my closest orchestra friends. I was on a high and when a certain musician with seniority over me asked me to stay for a coffee after rehearsal, I was more than happy to chat. That’s when my world caved in. He made it very clear that he thought I‘d been in the orchestra long enough and probably too long, that unspecified others agreed, and while he was not going to be a bad guy and stick his neck out by starting official loss of proficiency procedures, he felt it was time that I drastically cut back my hours and decided upon an exit plan for the near future. I was totally shattered. Friendships that had gone back years quickly became distant – often people tend to watch their own backs and give trouble a wide berth. A lot of the problem was probably me – I didn’t feel part of the group anymore so I withdrew. Home life was tough too. My marriage very became strained.

When I told my husband Chris, what had been going on, we eventually decided it was best that I leave the orchestra as trying to hang in there was taking too great a toll and that we would go to Tasmania and make a new start. Early in 2010 we sold our Newport house and I submitted my resignation. To my surprise, the orchestra CEO wanted to turn things around and make leaving a positive experience for me, so he suggested I stay until on until July at which time the orchestra would put on some suitable event after a special concert. While this was all very touching, it actually created huge problems as we had absolutely nowhere to live. We searched increasingly frantically for a short term rental where my wonderful old Golden Retriever would be permitted too. It was looking totally impossible, so Chris and I moved onto the 34 foot sailing boat we had then and my much loved “Banjo” was banished to a boarding kennel. 

It’s difficult to live in a tiny space even when you’re feeling good, but next to impossible when both people are feeling stressed, threatened, and misunderstood. I was going to work each day and trying to play well while mourning the fact that I was leaving the only world I’d known for most of my adult life and keeping it a secret from almost everyone. I missed my dog dreadfully. I missed my friends – I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them what was happening, and spent most orchestra breaks alone. My husband was trying to maintain some semblance of dignity and control by criticising and ordering me around on the boat. It was hell.

The main thing that kept me going through all this was looking forward to the Saturday long run and my crazy goal of running a marathon. With a group of other Paceline Runners, I’d entered the Gold Coast Marathon, July 4^th 2010. Susan had drawn up a great training plan to follow, and the routine provided much needed stability. Running was a good reason to get away from the boat super early in the morning – often I’d drive in to the city well before peak hour and do intervals or tempo runs in the Botanic Gardens and the Domain before rehearsal. Basically, it saved my sanity– it was less about running and more about my state of mind. I discovered a few other runners in the orchestra which was fantastic – new friends when I needed them most. Rose Plummer, the piccolo player, gave me a wonderful running book, Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

When the designated long runs became longer and marathon training meant running further than the planned Paceline Saturday run, Susan found me a running partner. I did a few of the longest runs with Toni Hackwill which really helped. I had a setback during a tempo run alone in the rain when I slipped and probably broke a rib. Didn’t show up on the x-ray but had the same healing time. I kept running because it would have broken my heart to stop, but already slow, I became slower still. Had one really bad week when I “hit the wall” after running around Centennial Park with Toni and we were heading over the bridge back to Mosman. Susan’s encouragement and sound reasoning got me through all that, and I kept going.

The week of the Marathon was huge – my last official week in the orchestra and my last week in Sydney with a farewell party organized after my final concert. I had a ticket to fly to Queensland the next day, to get my race number at the expo and hopefully catch up on some sleep before the marathon early the following morning. The last concert was bittersweet, a lovely program with the violin soloist Midori, who actually came to my farewell party. There were speeches, in the concert hall during the actual concert and again at the party, a moving tribute, except that the speaker was the same fellow who had backed me into a corner and pressured me to leave.

It was a huge relief to get on the plane at last and then to soak up the exciting atmosphere that had nothing to do with the music world. My marathon plan, in light of the sore rib, lack of sleep, and traumatic past week, was to start close to the back, take it easy, drink at all the refreshment stations, keep running, have fun, and finish. When the race started, I felt absurdly euphoric just to be there. I ran slowly, wanted to enjoy myself and keep feeling good. Got to half marathon distance, feeling fine, especially when some Paceline friends who had done the half and finished earlier gave me a cheer. 

All was well until about 38kms – I was really tiring, and my chronically dodgy stomach started to play up badly. I moved off the road and chucked up all the excess water I’d had– not my proudest moment. No way was I going to pull out though – I walked a couple hundred metres, and then realized a slow run was much more comfortable, so I was back into it. At this stage it was all mental – stubbornness (?) But I finished!!!!    I made it onto a bus and staggered into the hotel. But after a lovely long shower I decided to walk to the Paceline party so that my legs wouldn’t seize up – best thing I could have done, I felt absolutely fantastic.

The next day I flew back to Sydney to meet Chris, and we packed our cars to head to Hobart. I’d arranged for Banjo to fly to Tassie ahead of us, and he was safe in a rural boarding kennel. In Hobart we have been dealing a whole new set of challenges – again searching for a dog friendly place to rent, finding the beautiful house we bought, and we’re still working on finding jobs. I splurged on a beautiful flat bar road bike as a retirement present to myself.   Took a little while to get my confidence up, but now my happiest times are spent zooming along the bike paths with the sea breeze behind me, I just love it. 

I didn’t get to run much for awhile, then did too much too soon, and copped my first real injury, an ankle problem. Arghh! I emailed Susan, hoping to train for the Cadburys half marathon, but I thought my chances were probably less than 50-50 considering how I had been hobbling around. Susan designed a brilliant program that included running days and cycle or rest days in-between – just perfect. I really enjoyed both the training and the race, despite some hills glossed over on the web site and an uncharacteristically warm morning, and finished in.xxx which was better than I thought I would do.

Future plans include all the nearby fun runs that come along, another half in a few months, I hope, and possibly another marathon toward the end of the year. If I can hook up with some far from speedy local runners, it would be great, but in any case I intend to remain a Paceline runner from afar!