GREAT OCEAN ROAD VIRTUAL MARATHON
16th May 2020
Hi Everyone…
For everyone whom i havent meet at GPC.. My name is Sharee Sheriff…47yrs Young…? Been with GPC for nearly 3yrs…
Within that time i found out i had developed hyperthyroidism and had multiple Goiters around the thyroid and throat inwhich 2 where toxic and were making me pretty sick….so Within a month i had surgery to remove the whole thyroid and now on thyroid replacement medication for life.
So a year has gone by…and it hasnt been the easy recover…..my parathyroid was a little damage in surgery so i am not producing near enough Calcium and vitamin D for someone my age and level of activities at i want to achieve “well for ironman level.” Also still playing the medication game with thyroid levels are always to high or way too low…body is just having trouble adapting but the worse of it all, is the 24hr consistent all over body muscle and bone pain..
Ive had a few a temps to have a come back into triathlon but its always been too soon and i fail, just cannot back up the training, along with working each day..
So i have been walking alot mostly about 5km nothing extreme and over the mths ive have adapted to the pain and basically just learnt to live with it, instead of it over taking my life…so 3 weeks ago i seen on facebook the great ocean road marathon, that is was a virtual race over 48 hrs to complete, so i thought thats heaps of time i could possibly try that.. and as for the Poeple who know me…i very rarely do things by halfs…so its was the full hog, i was going for 42km..so honstly i had no real plan it was just to go out and walk as far a i could each weekend..
Week 1, 10km
Week 2, 25km
Week 3, 42km the full hog.
So now the restrictions have lifted a bit, the plan was to walk from home lara to geelong eastern beach and back to lara….?
So the morning of the marathon walk was here…i had packed some gels,muesli bars,magnesium tablets mixed with water…
It was a 6am start still dark out ….with 4 degress with no wind….perfect start to the day…walking along hovells creek towards the back of the grammer school….it was a beautiful sunrise and i was feeling really good…high energy my quads were already telling me that they were awake too.. but that was normal…they always feel like they getting squashed in a vice….
As i was walking into st helens beach area..i seen that they have built a water front walk way that leads to rippleside….so cool…there where so many poeple out i even got to see dolphins just off rippleside..
Anyway made it too eastern beach and walked to limeburners till i got to 21km….i was so stoked…and still had high energy and legs were little sore but its wasnt really bothering me…after a quick pic and update on facebook i started walking back to lara i had spotify going and just tuning out just to make the miles go faster…
The walk back home was most definitely alot longer it was just after 30km my mind started to shift into why in hell am i doing this….every  muscle in my body was throbbing and all i could do was just keep walking…..about 35km i felt my hands were really tight and my fingers were tingly i looked at them there where swollen and i couldnt even bend my fingers to make a fist.. a few more kms at 38km….that was it….i had enough…. i just wanted to stop and sit but i knew if i did i wouldn’t be able to get back up or even start walking again as every step i took the bottem of my feet felt like they were breaking, the bones were cracking from underneath me….the pic i took as above was from this moment…the necklace i was wearing is my nans who past away in june last yr so i took nan along for the walk and hoped she gave me strengh in this moment…..i also checked in on facebook at hovells creek….as i thought if i get into trouble or fall dead they will know were to find the body.??
They was a few special moments….as i was walking/ shuffling along they were lots of white butterflys around and some were fying around me so close if i had the energy to lift my hands i could touch them…i just keep watching and concentrating on the butterfly basically all the way home… as i reached the 42km mark a few meters away from my house…when i started walking up the driveway and pressed the stop on my garmin…it was the best feeling ive had in a very long time…that i actually signed up for an event, turned up and completed in 9hrs and 22mins..
So now it will be a painful couple of days….but the momory will last a life time…and i got myself some new Bling…?
Till next race…?????????????????