I completed 2 weeks of the running plan – at the end of week 2 – which is now nearly 2 weeks ago and the post has been sitting here in draft as my attention was elsewhere. Completing week 2 doesn’t sounds like much but I have not actually managed to complete 2 weeks of any training programme for a very long time. So just having gone out and ticked off the 6 runs on the plan feels like a win. I did the 3rd run of week 2 at Bolton Abbey. I have written about our Bolton Abbey loop previously and it’s been a go to place for lots of running adventures. It was nice to be running somewhere other than my immediate neighbourhood. It was a hard run and no easier than the previous ones and I had all sorts going on in my head. But, remember that for run 2 week 2 I said that that run somehow felt more normal. Well I had that same sort of feeling again and I have been thinking about that a bit. The first few runs just felt clunky and weird and like I’d forgotten how to run. I didn’t feel at all like running was something I should be doing or that I belonged out there. Run 3 of Week 2 seemed to build on the vague realisation from run 2 that maybe, just maybe I do belong out there. While the run was still annoyingly hard and I was huffing and puffing, everything felt less weird, less clunky.

So I wanted to think about belonging in running and what my feeling of clunky and not normal means in relation to that. Over the years I have had my share of imposter syndrome – in relation to all sorts but let’s stick with the running for now. When I first started running I didn’t feel like I belonged at all. The name of my blog did not originally have the ‘not’ in brackets and I usually felt self-conscious and out of place. I am not sure when that changed. But it did change, because looking back at it now, I did feel like I belonged, like taking up space on the trails was just as much my right as anyone else’s and like running was something normal. I always had the race or event nerves, I often felt like maybe that wasn’t really my place. Knowing that you are going to finish towards the back and possibly last doesn’t necessarily make you feel like you belong somewhere – but I did belong. At some point along the running rollercoaster I stopped feeling like the running world wasn’t for me and even when I still worried about being too slow or people having to wait for me, I never felt like I was in the wrong place doing the wrong thing.

So where am I now? Certainly the first few runs were pretty awful. As were my stop start attempts over the last 18 months or whatever. I feel self conscious, uncoordinated, clunky and like I am taking up space in all the wrong ways. I’m worrying what other people see when they see me running, I worry about all the wobbly bits, the slowness, the huffing and puffing… all of it. I think the feeling of clunkiness is actually about self consciousness. It’s about worrying what other people think, it’s about being aware of my t-shirt clinging to my curves, my running pants being, well running pants – so no hiding anything, my sports bra doing its best but its best perhaps not being quite un-bouncy enough. I’m not running clunky, I’m thinking clunky. So the feeling of more normal that I experienced at the end of week 2 is I think just a sign that I got out of my own head a bit. Run 2 that week was the first loop I did and I was excited about that and remember thinking about where exactly I would end up and if the loop was long enough or too long etc- so thinking about something other than me running. And run 3 was at Bolton Abbey and it was still quiet so it was really just me. If there are no people, there’s no need to worry about what they think and anyway I was too distracted by taking in the beginnings of autumn, the still subtle but now noticeable change of colour and the different air. I was looking around more, watching a heron on the middle of the river as I ran or trying to spot the long tailed tits that I could so clearly hear.

I am a long way off feeling like I belong in the running world again and I suspect I am equally far away from not feeling self conscious but I’ll take the less clunky and more normal whenever I can get it and I’ll just have to trust that the rest will come. One step at a time, gently.