It was about this time last year that Keilor Downs’ Chantel Sciciuna admits she’d never felt so scared in her life.
She was at work in Sunshine when word came through that her 53-year-old mother, her “idol”, had suffered a heart attack requiring a quintuple bypass.
That “major wake-up call” has transformed her life, from being obese to running nearly every day in preparation for a 10-kilometre leg of Run Melbourne on July 27.
“Until mum’s heart attack I’d never run in my life,” Chantel says. “I’ve had personal trainers in the past and the first thing I’ve said to them is, ‘I don’t run; don’t ask me to run and you’ll keep your job’.
“When mum had her heart attack it was on my mind to start taking better care of myself, but sometimes it takes a scare for it to actually eventuate. I remember the doctors looking at me and saying the odds were against me if I didn’t wake up and start looking after myself.”
She’s been ‘bitten’ so hard by the fitness bug, Chantel now tries to run every day, either around Maribyrnong River, up Taylors Road or on a treadmill at a Derrimut gym. “I like to mix it up in order to keep myself motivated. I track all my runs with a GPS watch and sometimes I even race myself. The feeling of beating an old ‘personal best’ is phenomenal.
“People look at me now and have no idea how hard I’ve worked to come this far. I never thought I’d be signing up to do a 10-kilometre run.”
Whenever she struggles with motivation, she only has to think of her mum’s health battles.
“I don’t ever remember being that scared in all of my life,” she remembers. “Your mum is the one that never gets sick; she’s always there to look after you when you’re sick.
“Mum’s had a hard life and she’s always managed to stand on her own feet or bounce back, but why mum? Of all the people. I think the worse thing was seeing her in a hospital bed. Her road to recovery is still going nearly 12 months on.”
Run Melbourne is on Sunday, July 27.
More info at www.runmelbourne.com.au
