{"id":2499,"date":"2017-11-14T13:47:30","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T13:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=2499"},"modified":"2023-03-22T12:40:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T12:40:29","slug":"my-cardiff-is-13-1-miles-of-city-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/2017\/11\/14\/my-cardiff-is-13-1-miles-of-city-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"My Cardiff is&#8230;. 13.1 miles of city streets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">Dr Anne Rebafka <span style=\"color: #ff0000\">(MSc 2010, DAHP 2016) <\/span> Cancer survivor and #TeamCardiff runner at the 2017 Cardiff University\/Cardiff Half Marathon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo be honest, my first impressions of Cardiff weren\u2019t great. A grey, rainy, somewhat deprived city: not the most enticing place to go running.<\/p>\n<p>That was in 2009. I was starting a Professional Doctorate in Advanced Healthcare Practice. Cardiff had been a natural choice. I\u2019d taken my Master\u2019s degree through a Cardiff University outreach programme, based in Bavaria. It was a great experience: \u00a0each student received so much attention. \u00a0And I liked how \u2018normal\u2019 it was to study nursing in the UK. In Germany, where there is no such thing as a Professional Doctorate, people would have been asking, \u201cNursing? How can you study that?\u201d. Cardiff University\u2019s doctoral programme provided the guidance and structure I needed to undertake this new area of research.<\/p>\n<p>Being in Cardiff also helped me rediscover my love of running. At the age of 21 I\u2019d been diagnosed with advanced cancer, and because of my illness I hadn\u2019t done any exercise for more than ten years. For me, running is both relaxing and stimulating. I can\u2019t remember a single occasion when I didn\u2019t come home from a run with a new idea. Lots of my doctorate was done on foot; I would take my phone with me, dictating all the bright (or not so bright!) thoughts I had for later.<\/p>\n<p>And as I explored Cardiff, I came to love its diversity. It\u2019s such a wonderful mix of Victorian arcades, modern architecture and green, sprawling parks; of languages, cultures and food. I love the way it can look so different, depending on your location and the time of day.<\/p>\n<p>Taking on the half marathon as part of #TeamCardiff 2017 was one of the most exciting things I\u2019ve ever done. It\u2019s a brilliant combination of so many things that matter to me. As a survivor of cancer, I\u2019ll always be grateful for the research which enabled me to receive treatment and survive. \u00a0As a researcher, I know how hard it can be to secure funding, so I\u2019m proud to help. As a Cardiff alumna, I always look forward to meeting people in the School of Healthcare Sciences (and hopefully doing some work).<\/p>\n<p>Running the Cardiff Half was a brilliant experience! We had perfect weather, clubbed with amazing spectators, and of course a fast and furious course \u2013 I even achieved a personal best of 1:53.12! I didn&#8217;t expect that. Not. At. All.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>To learn more about #TeamCardiff and the 2018 Cardiff University\/Cardiff Half Marathon, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cardiff.ac.uk\/donate\/fundraise-for-us\/run-the-cardiff-half-marathon\">visit our website<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr Anne Rebafka <span style=\"color: #ff0000\">(MSc 2010, DAHP 2016) <\/span> Cancer survivor and #TeamCardiff runner at the 2017 Cardiff University\/Cardiff Half Marathon","protected":false},"author":1438,"featured_media":2142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,85,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiff-connect","category-healthcare-sciences","category-our-alumni"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1438"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2499"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2542,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499\/revisions\/2542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}