Month: June 2016

5km Puddle Plod

Jess GuthLeave a comment

Yesterday evening we were in need of something positive. I’d struggled through the day battling the urge to go and hide under the duvet. By 7pm I hadn’t really done anything at all. So we went for a run. We decided to do our last RunDisney 5km to complete the RunDisney Running Shorts Series. The Garmin died about 3/4 of the way along but as we were running out and back and had turned at exactly half way it didn’t matter. It was raining but it was quite nice running in the rain and sometimes dodging puddles and sometimes just running straight through them or even jumping in them.

We did the 5km in roughly 36 minutes – a little bit under possibly and I had 2 short little walk breaks of less than a minute each. It was a good run and I enjoyed bits of it even. I felt a bit dizzy again on the way home but it passed quickly and after some stretches, a bath and then some more yoga I actually felt pretty good and  once we went to bed I fell asleep quickly and slept well for a few hours.

Today has been a struggle. I have tried to get work done and concentrate as I am keenly aware that there is so much that needs doing. I have managed to get some stuff done but it has been punctuated by frequent retreats to the sofa and one brief running away to hide under the duvet. My brain’s not working right, it’s sluggish and chaotic and that’s quite scary. My hips have also been really tight today but have eased a bit after some yoga.

I’m in that funny catch 22 thing where I know I need to go run and push quite hard to get the benefits and clarity that the exercise brings but my black puppy has got hold of the back of my pants and is pulling me back to the sofa telling my that I am rubbish at everything – until it loosens its grip a little getting out is such a big effort that I am exhausted before I get out the door.

I guess all I can do is keep on plodding!

Just plodding, grumpily

Jess Guth2 Comments

Hello. Did you notice the gap in posts? I think this is the longest time I haven’t blogged about running since I started this blog. There might be all sorts of reasons for that – there’s a lot of stuff going on but actually I think it is just because I don’t really like running at the minute. I have had a couple of good runs but I’ve also been good at not going and mostly it has just felt like a long slog. Even the second of the RunDisney Shorts series wasn’t really fun.

So what have I done since I last blogged? Lots of excuses, a couple of short run-to-the-sheep-and-back runs, a miserable 4 x 800 metres, a very fast mile, a speedy 4 mile seafront run and today a 5 mile hot plod.

The thing is, you’re supposed to get better at this, right? I’m not. Just 2 months (almost exactly) after doing the London Marathon I feel like I can barely run at all. I wanted to scale down distance a bit and focus on getting a bit faster over shorter distances and to run longer intervals so that I could run a 10km without walking at the same pace or faster than when I include walk breaks. Well that’s not working. I’m slower than ever even when I use walk breaks and I can barely run my 2.5 minute intervals most of the time – can’t remember the last time I took out a walk break… I feel like I am going backwards on everything.

Are there some positives? Probably. I ran a fast mile (for me) a couple of weeks back. 9.43minutes which felt horrendously hard and I huffed and puffed all the way through complaining I couldn’t do this running crap. I had no idea it was fast until Kath told me. I cheered up a bit after that. I also managed 20 minutes running without walking along the seafront in Portsmouth on Tuesday. I stopped and chatted to Kath on the phone for a few minutes before turning back and running back to the hotel in 24 minutes. I enjoyed that run and the little swim in the hotel pool immediately afterwards. I didn’t have the Garmin so can’t be sure how far it was but Google Maps insists it was a 4 mile run so that was fast for me too. But at the back of my mind I just have that niggle that actually it can’t have been 4 miles. I’m not that fast.

Today we went for our 5 mile run that has been outstanding on our plan for ages. I managed the 2.5 mins running 1 minute walking without too much trouble but the whole thing felt like really really hard work and a couple of times I started a run thinking I’ll take the next walk break out but by the time I got the end of the run I didn’t. I started really feeling the heat at about 3 miles and the canal towpath isn’t as shady as I thought it was. Anyway, I finished the 5 miles in an hour and 3 minutes 18 seconds. Walking up the hill afterwards I felt really flakey and when I got almost to the top of the hill I had to sit down at the side of the road for a few minutes because my blood pressure just plummeted and I nearly passed out. I was fine after a little rest and then a banana and water at home quickly followed by a gorgeous mango and avocado salady thing.

So yeah – I’m not loving the running thing at the minute but I will just keep plodding.