It may not look like it to anyone watching or looking in but I’m having a full blown fight with my black labrador puppy – it’s screaming at me and I am being quietly determined if a little shakey and scared. The little bitch is full of energy this morning – my energy and I want it back. My head is full and cluttered and noisy – I can’t really focus on anything. I have got up off the sofa to do something at least twice today and in the time it took me to stand up I’ve forgotten what it was I was doing. Kath was talking to me and I just heard words but my brain wouldn’t process them. I don’t know what she said. Not being able to think clearly is really uncomfortable for me. I’m an academic, my life is about thinking clearly.

I managed to go to sleep quite quickly last night but I woke up at 2am. I was awake for ages then. Eventually I fell asleep again. When I woke up at 8ish I kept dozing on an off putting off the inevitable ‘I have to get up now’. One step at a time… remember. If it was all too much I could always go back to bed. Goal one is just getting out of bed, doesn’t matter for how long and anyway I needed to pee. I got up. Kath made me coffee and a bagle and I sat on the sofa – my designated safe space. I opened emails and didn’t shut them again immediately. I dealt with a few. And breathe. I cried a bit.

I checked Facebook and Twitter – there were more lovely messages. I cried more. I played candy crush and soda crush and completed a level I’d been stuck on for months. I cried again. I somehow miss that level – I’d stopped playing to complete it, I played it for some odd sense of familiarity – gone now. I had mug of hot water. Then I had this sudden need for order and planning and being on control of absolutely everything. So I tried to remember what we had agreed about our training last night. We went over the training plan and worked out what we had missed and therefore how far behind we were. It’s not actually that bad and we have a plan, a sensible plan not a reckless plan, to get back on track. I remembered – my brain does still function a bit. I’m not sharing the revised plan because that feel like an awful lot of pressure. Let me see how I go for a few days.

Next I booked our train tickets to and from London for our Disney trip and for 2 December work trips (London and Nottingham) – very carefully and with triple checking. There, achieved something.

Goal 2: Get dressed in running gear. I went upstairs for no particular reason, I just found myself there. ‘I’m here, I might as well get dressed’, I thought. I put running gear on. Then I returned to the sofa. So where’s the puppy in all of this? Well it is rolling around in a sunny patch on the floor laughing hysterically at me. As I ate the bagle with peanut butter it mocked me about calories etc; as I dealt with the emails it just sat there smirking waiting for a mistake, as I booked the train tickets my head was so full of noise I worried about booking the wrong date or the wrong times… As I got dressed in my running gear the pup’s giggles were deafening. I don’t have the energy to shout back or make it be quiet. All I can do is take one step at a time. It screams at me and I let it, I shout back by doing something I don’t think I can. I have got up and I have got dressed…

…and now, I am going for a run