I’m in Birmingham for work and currently sitting in the Clayton Hotel restaurant hoping that writing this on my phone will make me look unsociable enough to stop any of the others joining me for breakfast. There should be a very clear rule against joining others for breakfast unless explicitly agreed beforehand.
Anyway, I am feeling quite pleased with myself because I actually got out for a run. I was awake early but couldn’t really be bothered to get up. I felt dehydrated and quite creaky. I dozed for a bit, had some water and decided to at least go for a little walk in what seemed to be glorious morning sunshine. I got my running gear on and set off. I walked up the slope towards the cathedral and after about 5 minutes dropped into run/walk. I carried on to symphony hall and then looped back to say hi to the Floozie in the Jacuzzi before coming back past the still closed shops, Moor Street station and the seemingly ever expanding HS2 building site.
The run was almost exactly 2 miles and felt like a positive loop to start the day with. My right hamstring and calf are tight and might need some tlc but other than that it just felt nice to be out.
Ah well that glorious few seconds at the end of the last run I wrote about was short lived. I’ve been out once sine then and it was fairly miserable. Although I was excited I’d got out at all. Then I got a little busy with stuff and with excuses so did sweet FA for the rest of the week. Yesterday was supposed to be ‘Dopey proof of time day’ but there was absolutely no way I was dragging my arse round the Manchester Half Marathon and Kath is still coming back from injury. So no proof of time for us so we will be starting our Dopey races at the back – hopefully not dead last though. It’s a bit meh to have not started yet another race. But we went to Manchester anyway and had a lovely Saturday, wandering round the city, watching the world go by, drinking mocktails and generally just being. It was lovely. Somehow though on Sunday I was exhausted. I slept for a chunk of the afternoon when we got back and I went to bed really early and slept for about 11 hours. I feel marginally better today. I am not really up for doing hard things though. Every excuse busting trick in the book isn’t really working. I am happy on the sofa and not at all interested in moving off it. Possibly a bit of depression, maybe just end-of-term fatigue. Who knows but it’s meh.
I need to something else. I am going to see if posting my plan for the week here helps me actually do it – I am not promising. You might just get a week of excuses but here goes:
Today I was going to run. I haven’t. I have done an upper body strength session and 5km on the bike (was meant to be 10k but my legs died – meh). I will do my Daily stretches and the foot injury prevention session 1 before bed
Tuesday: I am off work so no excuses! 45 minute run and I would like to re-start the Dynamic Runner strength programme. Daily stretches and Foot session.
Wednesday: Re-try the 10k bike, Daily stretches and foot session and the 2nd strength session
Thursday: Rest (I am away for work) so just daily stretches and foot session. If I want to do something because I am bored in the hotel, there’s a beginner barre that doesn’t need equipment or much room
Friday: Still away so a morning run from hotel – 45 minutes ish. Daily stretches and the last foot session
Saturday: 5 mile run, Strength Session 3 and Daily Stretches
Sunday: Bike, Daily stretches and Session 1 of another injury prevention programme – maybe the ankle strength one (7 days)
The Daily Stretches are always around 15-18 minutes and the foot programme is no more than 10 minutes each time. The strength sessions are 20-30minutes. And yes I know it is not the ideal plan with the strength sessions back to back etc but it’s where they fit in around being away. I’ll keep you posted!
Ah yes, running. It’s been crap. I am totally inconsistent, I have zero motivation, my lungs don’t feel right (Covid damage? Just totally unfit?), my back and hips are niggly, everything is tight, hay fever is a bitch and my head is not up for doing hard things at the moment. I want easy, comfort zone, not pushing anything anywhere. I am not currently convinced that it might be kind of fun to do the impossible. I’m really not.
BUT, I also really want to be able to do stuff. I miss my fitness, I miss running just being a thing that I do and not an endless drama and mind games to actually get myself out of the door. I want to do the Dopey Challenge in January, I want to do the Great North Run in September and all the milestones and adventures in-between and I want to do them with joy. I want to have fun. I don’t want it all to just be one big long miserable slog. So I need to get fitter. A lot fitter. Which means I have to go do the things that are impossible and hope that somewhere somehow the fun comes back and I re-discover the joy.
So today’s step 1 or the many many step 1s and re-starts and re-boots and whatever over the last few weeks and months: Get out and run. I had put off going for a run all week. One thing I am good at is excuses. I could give you a perfectly reasonable sounding one for each run I didn’t do. None of them are justifiable really. though. So anyway the plan today was for us each to go to our own thing before breakfast and by the time I properly woke up, Kath was already out on her loop and just about back home. We had a coffee together and Einstein cat came into bed so there’s 2 excuses to not go right there – first that we were going to have breakfast together and I had slept a lot later than Kath and she was already back and so she’d be hungry so I should just make breakfast and go later (going later basically never happens). Kath put that excuse to bed by declaring she was happy having granola and we could just do our own thing. Einstein is Kath’s cat through and through so I rarely get cuddles with him so I really didn’t want to disturb him cuddled right into me curled up under my legs. Again Kath pointed out that I could just go when he moved and it really didn’t matter – nowhere to be today.
So, vaguely plausible excuses put to bed, I got out of bed. I’d been thinking about where to go. I really struggle on any sort of up. It’s like the minute my lungs have to actually work they can’t. I get out of breath really quickly and sort of grind to a halt. Obviously therefore I avoid up. That’s not going to help. So I decided that I would start with up this morning and walk towards Keighley Gate. Added bonus here that setting off walking is less scary than setting of running. I couldn’t actually remember whether I am supposed to be on a 3 mile weekend or whether it’s a 5 mile weekend and honestly at this point I don’t care. The plan is gone. I just need to build some sort of consistency somehow. I thought 2 miles up and 2 miles down would be good.
I set off on a good march up the hill. After about 50 metres I was huffing and puffing and after a further 50 metres I thought maybe this was a really bad idea. Lungs were burning and I was huffing and puffing and really wanted to slow down. I slowed a little bit just to breathe but kept walking. I made it to be mile in about 19.5 minutes which actually in my history of walking that stretch really isn’t too bad.I was knackered though. Onwards. At 1.5 miles my back said Hi with a sharp pain across the bottom right. I might have yelped. My hip joined in. At 1.65 miles I thought it was all a bit silly and I should head back down before anything really hurts. I started jogging and it was ok. Pain wasn’t worse really but now I felt hot. I put 30 seconds walk breaks in every minute or 90 seconds. I was making a really conscious effort to make sure the run was positive overall. I was slightly irritated that I was using walk breaks on what is essentially a long downhill but it also felt like the right thing to do.
And then, for just a brief moment the magic returned. As I turned left onto our road, everything felt perfect. There was no pain, no niggle even, my form felt perfect, my glutes properly engaged, my speed picked up but felt almost effortless. For just a short 30 seconds ish at the end of my run everything came together, rhythm, cadence, breathing, form. It felt perfect. It is fun to do the impossible. There is joy in hard after all. Now how do I bottle that? How do I hang on to that when my body and mind are screaming at me that it’s all pointless and I can’t run anyway so why bother trying? I don’t know, but for now I’ll take it.
And, if I told you that Disney pace requirement is 16 minute mile, you will understand from the screen short below why today’s effort had an added bonus level of excitement:
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.
Storm Cat helping with Yoga
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.
Me after the longest 2 miles ever
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!
I was determined to make a bit more of a contribution to our total today. At least I was until I actually got out of bed and was faced with the reality of actually going out and making a contribution to our total. I procrastinated a bit, played through some of the usual excuses. Hang on was that a twinge in my back? How’s my foot? I’m sure I felt that complain a minute ago. My jacket is still damp, maybe I should wait. Kath is out on her long run, maybe I should wait until she’s back in case she needs rescuing along the way… Eventually, as is usually the case, I ran out of excuses and got sorted to head out.
I hadn’t given distance all that much thought. So as I set off I thought that it would be good if I could actually maybe finally manage 3 miles without any drama. As I tried to work out where that would take me I decided that 3 miles made no sense and that instead I would run the start of my current usual loop but then drop onto the canal and try and get to Fisherman’s Bridge and then back to Bar Lane which should be about 4 miles (it was in fact exactly 4 miles). I haven’t done 4 miles in an age. I seem to have a bit of a wobble after just over a mile and things get hard and apart from one ‘Sheep Loop’ I haven’t even come close to doing 3 miles run/walk. So who knows what possessed me to decide I was going to do 4.
A mile came and went. I dropped onto the canal. I picked off walkers one by one. I nodded in acknowledgement at a number of runners coming towards me. I don’t really know what I was thinking about while running the first mile and a half or so. Then my thoughts suddenly turned to whether I really needed to do 4 miles or whether 3 would do. I considered a number of options. I wondered about turning round at 2 miles and heading back the same way which would give me 4 miles but would certainly mean I wouldn’t be able to manage run/walk to the end as I am still completely dead on hills. Then I wondered about turning round at 2.5 miles and coming back the half mile which would take me to a bridge where I could then walk home from. Then I wondered about just running a loop and heading on to the bridge as intended and then crossing and walking up from there. None of those options were quite what I wanted though.
I reminded myself that I really do want to get better at doing hard things. I have lost a lot of my mental strength generally and certainly in running and I need to build that up as much as I need to build my fitness. That reminder got me to the 2 mile beep. I did a quick mental scan of myself. Nothing hurt, feet were still dry, I was slightly too warm and a little grumpy for now real reason. Ok, onwards. I started looking around a bit, no herons, no kingfishers, just some ducks and about 4 dog walkers ahead. Ooh I could just turn round before I get tangled…. No! At the bridge I turned round and fairly soon had to weave my way in and out of the dog walkers again. For a little while I ran on the ‘I’ve turned round which means I must be nearly finished’ high but then it got hard. The 3 mile beep came and went and I just refused to think about it. I just kept running for 30 seconds and walking for 30 seconds until my final bridge was in sight. I reminded myself a couple of times that I could do it and yes my feet might be a little sore and my back a bit achey but we were in single figures in terms of running minutes left. The 4 mile beep went just a few steps before the bridge.
I was relieved to finish. I was getting to the stage of a run where I wasn’t sure if I could persuade myself to keep going. That might of course just be because I knew I was finished and I can never run further than I am supposed to be running that day. I walked up the hill home feeling quite happy with my efforts and also really quite tired. When I got home Kath was already home and about to get out of the bath. So I could have a soak in an epsom salts bath and then have some lunch. Since then I have been trying not to fall asleep. I do need to stretch more otherwise I don’t think I’ll be running tomorrow! We also might go for a walk later on this evening which will be a nice way to make sure I don’t stiffen up completely. Kath has been running strong with a solid 10 miles today. Currently we are at about 32km so just a little ahead of target on daily distance.
really (not) a runner 