JOGLE

JOGLE = John O'Groat's to Land's End

Turns out JOGLE is a thing many people know about, of which was recently brought to my attention by my cross country ultra running partner, John Price. After further investigation and googling, I found this to be something fascinating, as I've not thought about this type of thing before. This is a crossing many people do in the UK that goes from the northern portion (John O'Groat's, Scotland) to the very bottom of England, at Land's End. I am no way an expert in this geography, nor familiar with customs and language/dialect of this area. It appears many people do this, mostly by bike (cycling) and some by run/walk. The best part about this is you can cross the UK in approx 860 miles, and see the country up front and personal. I fell in love with this idea. Then, that there's a staged race called JOGLE, was icing on this cake. Yes, 860 miles sounds do-able, but they make this race difficult (as in real difficult) by making it a staged race of 17 days. What this means is there's a certain number of miles per day you run, and you're given a map each night before the next day's route, and then they set a timeframe (on a daily basis) of how fast you have to do it. Don't make the cut off? Sorry, you're likely out of the race. There's no dilly dally-ing around, waiting for rain to pass, walking slow or stopping to eat, or take a nap and rest. No, you keep moving to make the cut-off each day. I don't know that I have a lot more details than that, just that that's the general rules set out on their website for the race.
What attracted me most to this type of race is 1) crossing another country by foot, 2) having other people involved, who track your existence and make sure you are okay (requirement of my husband for living on the side of the road), and 3) the milage of around 860 miles does not require months off of work, and 4) the challenge of it. So, after talking with David, we decided this might be a good idea, and going to the UK will be fun and exciting no matter if there's a race or not. I signed up. It's not until mid March 2020, so I'll be able to finish out this cycling (and running) season, and when the cooler weather is upon us, will increase my miles/week to adjust to the many miles per day that will be required.
This map is not the actual route that the race takes, but does show one of the many options of going from John O'Groat's to Land's End, in particular I believe this is one of the cycling routes used. It will give you a general idea of the path to Land's End.



How does something like this come about, you ask?

Once upon a time, I blogged about numbness and tingling in my arms and legs (a few months back). This led me to a path of MRI's, CT's, and biopsy's that showed various health conditions I had, without even knowing I had them. What happens in life is, when you have so much of yourself imaged (head, neck blood vessels, brain, spine) they find things. And they found things in various places that needed further investigating. And investigations we did. How about I skip past all the blah, blah, blah of this and that, and get down to what really matters: I'm still allowed to run and bike. I'm still allowed to live my life just like I did before. I have things I need to watch for, and through the process of it all, I had a long term heart monitor implanted in my chest to record my heart coming-and-goings 24/7. I have follow up visits to watch and make sure all is well in my brain, with my heart, and in my back. Nope, no official diagnosis, believe it or not, yet. I'll take that, and a happily ever after, for now.



What is a heart monitor implanted in you? It's a tiny AAA battery-sized device that records all your heart activity, and downloads it each day, and sent to the cardiologist. Then, if something is not right, they call and tell you, and are able to treat issues as needed. So far, so good. This is a 3 year thing, and after that, they take it out. After a week, I didn't even feel it or know it's really there. It's very convenient, as other heart monitoring devices are bulky, restrictive and time consuming. This option is perfect for my life style. I just live my life, and they let me know if anything is wrong.

It was during the 2 month process of elimination that I thought many thoughts. One was, 'if something is really wrong with me, I'm going to do this, and then that, and then this other thing, and that......". When word (and biopsies, CT's and MRI results) came back that I don't have anything terminal, I asked myself an important question: Why are you waiting til you're told you have an expiration date, before you do the things you want to really do?

It's like a mini awakening. Time to do things, before your body sets too many limits. Aging, illness and disease can't help but put limits on our physical abilities, it just does. That's why you don't see 70 and 80 year old people routinely cycling on the roads. Some do, yes. Most don't. Age puts us in a new place of listening to what our bodies are able to do, and stay in that lane. Otherwise, since the curbs are not spray painted bright yellow, you had better be careful, because agility is not top of the list for most seniors. So, I think I'll go do a few more things I want to do, before my body starts dictating what I can and can't do. That's just life. It's gonna happen, and I'm not sad about it. Instead, I'm grateful for the abilities I have at any age, and will try and take advantage of it. Time grabs hold of us all, and no one escapes that. So I shall move while God has granted me this wonderful ability to move.

To answer a few more questions.....yes, I'll be blogging (as much as I can) while in the UK, yes, David (and maybe Lauren) will be coming to the UK for some of the time, and yes, anything can happen between now and then, and yes, I'll miss the farm and my little Sugar more than words can express. Oh, and one more thing, even if they boot you out of the race, the crossing continues (at least for me it would). It's awesome!!! But you know I want to finish the race. I want that so bad.



I'll close with what blogging looks like:



Me, blogging.

Or, sheep pajama blogging......



I'm into it, I suppose. I think David took that when I didn't even know.



And me lately:



So while I ponder often, I keep moving forward. Sometimes I have to go backwards to move forward, and that's okay, too. My recent backwards events, have propelled me forward. So very grateful for all the wonderful doctors that make everything okay.

Moving onward,

Cyndi