Nearing the end of January and I haven’t run as much this month as I wanted to but I have definitely made progress. As of today I have run just under 20 miles – not far off a 3rd of the entirety of last year’s mileage. I have done some yoga almost every day. Sometimes only 10 minutes and often sabotaged (supported?) by Storm Cat but this is huge progress and I have done a few strength and HIIT sessions. I have lots to feel good about really. And I am trying. There’s that niggling voice in my head that keeps reminding me that I am way behind where I should be given the things I have coming up. A voice that keeps telling me that I am insane to think I can do the Yorkshire 3 Peaks in 90 days. A voice that keeps pointing out the obvious fact that I am still close to the heaviest I have ever been. A voice that will not accept that losing about 6 pounds over the course of a month is fine, good and steady progress and instead insists that the weight loss needs to be faster.
But while the voice is there, it is less forceful than it sometimes is. Yesterday I eventually managed to get out in the afternoon. I had all sorts of plans when I was still sitting on the sofa. I was going to run the 2 miles down the hill and along the canal a bit before turning round and running 2 miles back including the hill. But as I set off it soon became very clear that my lungs were not playing. I couldn’t get air in, I was puffed after just a couple of 30 second running intervals and the idea of taking a walk break out was ludicrous. It was tempting to just give up and there was a time where I would have done. But not yesterday. I physically shrugged and said to myself that it would be silly to turn back. I’d done the hardest bit and got out the door and being out was good. Plan A might not be on the cards but doing something is better than doing nothing. So I carried on, I stuck to my 30 seconds runnings followed by 30 seconds walking and gritted my teeth. The voice was there but it never got into monologue mode.
My back was niggly (lack of core strength) and I sounded more like a steam train than human but somehow I made it to a mile. ‘So’, I thought to myself ‘If I just do that again, I will have run 2 miles, and 2 miles is good’. On I went, suddenly conscious of the people along the canal, conscious of what I looked and sounded like, the assumptions people would make. The voice got louder and at about 1.5 miles I nearly stopped and walked home. I was, rarely for me, running with music so instead of stopping I just turned the volume up and focused on the lyrics to push the voice out of my head and then, suddenly there we were, 2 miles done. Everything seemed to hurt, I felt slightly dizzy and I couldn’t get air into my lungs fast enough. I started walking home and I recovered. I was fine. I did it. Perhaps not plan A but I was out and moving. Good enough.
This morning we went to Bolton Abbey and right up until we set off I was looking forward to it. I like running at Bolton Abbey. I like running through the wooded bits, I like the paths – not really trail so my scaredy-cat brain doesn’t need to worry about mud and slippery and all the silly things it worries about – but not tarmac either. I like listening to the birds, looking out for herons (none today) and the otters which continue to be elusive. I like listening to the musings of the river that sometimes whispers in confidence and sometimes shouts in anger but mostly just tells her own story as she meanders. But Bolton Abbey isn’t flat and I was not at all sure I had it in me today. Plan A was the Barden Bridge loop, Plan B was the Aqueduct loop and Plan C was to run to the Strid and back (actually plan C was to get back in the car and find somewhere for coffee and I wasn’t far off implementing Plan C after having gone for a pee). Kath set off to run the Barden Bridge loop and for a while I could see here ‘Dopey in Training’ shirt make steady progress ahead of me. She looked comfortable (she later said she wasn’t and it took her ages to settle) and that made me smile.
I walked the first 3 minutes to get moving and then I started running 30 second intervals. I was struggling physically from the go. Lungs struggled and my back was sore. I was in real danger of spiralling into negativity and just giving up. But I was wearing my new Dopey in training shirt. Kath bought it for us for my birthday, we designed it together and it came the other day. I couldn’t give up on its debut. I needed to give it a proper inaugural outing! I thought about what doing the short proud could look like today. Well so much of Dopey and certainly the training is actually just getting it done. It isn’t always pretty and more does it have to be. It’s about getting in the right mental place to just grind it out. So doing the shirt proud today meant doing the distance today, no excuses, even if it meant walking lots. I walked up the path by the Strid noting that Plan C was conquered – I was not turning round now. I ran down the hill and managed a few more proper 30/30 intervals along the flat. I was coming up on the aqueduct. The loop would still be 3.5 ish miles, that’s good. I’ve been struggling so doing that would be progress, right? Maybe – but that’s not what I set out to do today. Remember: The distance. Today. No excuses. Dopey. Proud. Nothing was seriously hurting, nothing was getting worse. I was tired, I was huffing and puffing but I was fine.
I carried on. I saw Kath on the other side of the river still looking good. I waved. I smiled and dropped back into running intervals. I’d walked a fair bit but I was doing ok. I hot two miles and in spite of being a chunk slower even than yesterday, it hadn’t felt too bad. I crossed Barden Bridge, I tried to stick to the 30/30 intervals on the flat and once past the aqueduct again I walked the slopes, ran the downhill and did a bit of both on the flat. Nemesis hill doesn’t seem so bad just walking and I ran down the other side. Back on the flat I tried to drop back into 30/30 but my calves were cramping so I jogged/hopped /walked from random landmark to random landmark. Through the last gate, onto the bridge and I could see Kath sitting with a coffee at the Cavendish Pavilion. I jogged to her and was done.
The running itself was pretty awful but it was a great run. I got a little bit better at doing hard. I reminded myself that the little niggly voice is not in control. January has not been perfect but it has been good enough and good enough is bloody brilliant!