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.