If you are looking for some inspirational reframing following yesterday’s post – you know the sort of ‘it was all terrible but actually good because this good thing happened and personal growth… positivity… gratitude… #blessed…-then stop reading now. You’re not getting that. The picture at the top is me dripping in sarcasm and rolling my eyes. Stronger than Yesterday is nonsense. The whole beating yesterday thing that pops up every now and again and was a staple of fitness industry advertising a while ago (not sure if it still is, I pay no attention), the idea that every time you go out and exercise, the session has to be better is nonsense. Better than what on what basis? Why? Anyway, inspirational quotes and memes are clearly wasted on me at the moment. What did stick with me from ages ago though is an idea I heard somewhere. It was from a famous runner. I want to say Eliud Kipchoge but that may well not be true. I have googled but it didn’t come up immediately and I don’t have the patience. Anyway, it was something along the lines of training runs not having to be pretty, not having to be better than the last one, not having to be happy or easy or whatever, they just have to be done.
Just having to be done reminded me of something I say to students when they are scared of assessments – do it scared, … but it needs to be done. If they want the thing at the end – the degree- then they need to do it. If I want to be able to have adventures, see the world, get outdoors, keep playing, I need to start getting this done. So I’ll do the gym miserable and grumpy and feeling judged today. This is me, taking up space (I hate the pictures btw but keeping it real) in a space that I feel totally conflicted in. I know what I am doing but it feels like everyone there assumes I do not (nobody assumes anything, they don’t care, this is all me). I feel invisible and hyper visible at the same time. I hate the mirrors but the mirrors also confirm that my form is good and I do in fact know what I am doing.
So, yeah, I went. Getting out was tough but once in the gym I turned my music up loud and disappeared into my bubble. I have my little leg routine, I did it mostly without thinking about it. So as I am feeling judged by numbers anyway, I will tell you what my weights circuit was this morning. This is just me, trying to take the power out of the numbers. I did 3 sets of everything
Leg Press: 52kg x 8
Leg Extension 25kg but niggled knee so dropped to 18kg x 8
Leg Curl 23kg x8
Adductor 29kg x 8
Adductor 50kg x 8
Calf Raise (single leg) 11kg x 8 (to go up next time)
Deadlift 17.5kg bar x 8 (to go up next time)
Glute bridge with 5kg weight
Did I have fun? Nope. Did I enjoy it in any way? Nope. Did I enjoy having done it? Still nope. But it doesn’t matter. It’s done. I did it fucking grumpy and quite a bit miserable but I’m ok. Nobody laughed (obviously), the numbers didn’t gang up on me, nothing earth shattering happened. Fat lass went to the gym, did a workout and left. End.
Kath also took my lego castle apart for me and I have bagged all the pieces and started to build the foundation for my magic. Still haven’t found the box and instructions but that doesn’t actually matter. So there you are, the castle is in bits, a bit like my fitness journey, waiting to be put back together again, section by section. This may take a while:
So if you are looking for motivation or inspiration (why are you still reading this?) then take this: Whatever the ‘it’ is for you right now. Just get it done. Do it tired, do it stressed, do it sad, angry, miserable. Doesn’t matter. It might not change your life but if it needs doing then do it however you feel. I did the gym miserable. I am still miserable about exercise but there is the tiniest possibility that I might actually be very very slightly stronger than yesterday – hm.
Ah right, where are we. It’s the end-ish of April. It’s well over a months since I last posted. I wrote the last post while we were away and I was all set for starting week 2 of couch to 5km. Then I got food poisoning or a nasty tummy bug and wiped myself out for a week. Eventually I started back on the bike, the new gym opened and I went to some classes and did a couple of strength sessions and I have done the odd yoga flow and workout at home. I even went for a run while at a conference in Glasgow. But nothing is quite clicking.
After attending the yoga class at the gym for the first time I wrote the following LinkedIn post. Since then I have been wondering if maybe I need to call out my own BS. Am I fitter than I look? The bit that I think is true is that I do indeed have a lot of experience. However, having spent chunks of time in the gym where there are mirrors everywhere, having been in several classes where I have struggled with some bits and having tried to go back to basics with running and with the bike, I am not so sure I am actually fitter than I look. And I don’t look fit.
I have noticed that the more time I have spent in the gym the less I feel like I belong there. The more classes I have been too, the less confident I am in taking up space in them, the more I go out and try and tick off the couch to 5km runs, the less I feel like a runner and as for the bike, well I never really believed that was for me. I was asked recently if I enjoyed the gym and the classes. My answer was that I am not that keen but that I do it because it makes me a better runner or even just allows me to run without getting injured. I want that to be true but it assumes I am currently running. In truth, I am not enjoying any of it. It’s miserable. All of it is unreasonably hard. I am stiff and creaky, weak, inflexible, have nothing on cardio and not even the willpower the swear mostly. This morning I did a 20 minute Joe Wicks strength workout, and by did I mean I tried but I modified every other exercise and for one I just quietly sobbed in something vaguely resembling child’s pose which I can’t properly get into because by tummy gets in the way and my hips won’t flex.
None of the tricks are working. I can’t motivate myself because I am struggling to trick my brain into getting it done. I know exercise is awful when you first start, when you have to claw yourself back to fitness. I feel like I have been clawing my way back since the first Covid infection in 2020. I feel like every time I make a tiny bit of progress, something happens. I feel like I haven’t had the chance to string any sort of consistency together. For the last few years I have never got beyond the ‘this is awful’ phase of exercise. I haven’t had the wins. I haven’t had the things that make it worth it. I haven’t been able to claim ‘strong not skinny’ for myself, I haven’t been able to focus on what my body can do rather than what it looks like because it can do so little at the moment. I haven’t even been able to say ‘This Girl Can’ because this girl can’t. And most of the time I was fine with that. I was fine with starting over over and over again, with making minimal progress, getting derailed and then going again. But now? I don’t know what has shifted. Maybe it’s the mirrors all over the gym, maybe it’s the lack of modifications given in most gym classes, maybe it is the constant ‘how to lose weight in your 40s’ advertising that hits my social media feeds, I don’t know. But for the first time in well over a decade I suddenly care that I am fat. It doesn’t feel like just a descriptor in the way that it has done for so long. I have forgotten that I don’t care what people think and suddenly found myself worrying about that. I have forgotten that it has never been about size and weight and have suddenly become concerned about both of those numbers, I have forgotten they are just numbers to which we have arbitrarily assigned value. I feel judged by the numbers. I have forgotten running, exercise, movement is about me and for me and not about anyone else or expectations or conforming to some weird normative bullshit about what my body looks like or can do. It’s swirling into one rather body conscious mess that makes getting out there doing the things that will help bring clarity and balance harder.
So today I wanted to start getting my head sorted but most things at the minute just feel like pressure. I could make a plan – what exercise do I want to do when. And I can do this well, my plans are good and sensible. I have been around this stuff for long enough to have a sense of what works and what is realistic. I could do a really ambitious but doable plan and I could also do a really gentle be kind to yourself through this wobble plan but just the idea of having a plan of any kind just made me convince myself that I would probably just disappoint myself. I thought I could use stickers again and give myself a sticker for every day where I manage to run, cycle or go to the gym – the stickers used to work well but now it just feels like it risks having to look at days and days without stickers when I inevitably don’t manage it. My self talk about just trying to do something was annoying and a bit preachy and anything inspirational that might have made me snap out of it was just not for me…
A week or so ago Kath told me about a conversation with her coach about visual representation of runs or mileage or whatever. And Kath has decided to use Lego – so no colouring in for miles run or workouts completed but instead Kath is, over time, going to build the house from Disney’s ‘Up’. I like this. Stickers on a calendar leave gaps, building something with lego doesn’t leave gaps, the progress and effort made are visible and remain for you to add to even if you miss some time. So I want to build my mini Disney Castle. I decided today that for every day where I manage to go out there and take up space in the fitness and exercise world, run, go to a class or the gym, cycle, whatever, I build. Brick by brick. I almost felt positive about it and thought that this long weekend I could literally lay the foundations for my own little castle of magic and dreams. But I can’t find the box. The castle is built on a shelf in my study. But the box and instructions? We have now searched the house from loft to every cupboard in the house. Can’t find it. Now I know I can download the instructions and I can keep the pieces in ziplock bags. It’s not actually a huge deal. But it felt like it. It felt like the universe saying ‘That castle of magic and dreams – yeah not for you’.
And while I am typing this, my lower back niggles, my bra is digging in, my right foot hurts for no reason and I know that I need to and want to snap out of it and get back to getting better at doing hard. I can do hard. Hell, I can do the impossible. It’s fun to do the impossible, or it used to be. Trusting the process, being patient and just trying to do something, trying to be kind and trying to call myself out when I am just being lazy is hard. I am ok doing hard. I don’t expect easy, it can be impossible for all I care. I will do it anyway, but what I can’t seem to do right now, is deal with feeling judged and like my value is somehow attached to numbers – numbers of the scales, on the clothes labels, on my Garmin or on the weights I am using at the gym. And the most annoying thing about this is – I am pretty sure most people are not judging. It’s all in my head and I don’t know why.
So we go again tomorrow. I want to do a strength session at the gym. I will take up space. I will do my thing. The numbers will be what the numbers will be. Maybe little by little my perspective will shift again. Trust the process, remember it’s for me, it’s about me and me needs to get out of my head.
Week One of a Couch to 5Km programme done. A day late but done and done in a way that felt like happy running. I posted about the first 2 runs last time. It took a while longer to get out for run 3. Yes I probably could have made the time during the week but it was a busy one and I am very very tired at the moment and I felt pretty on the edge in terms of keeping it all together, so this feels right.
Run 3 was uneventful. There was no attempt at excuses or elaborate planning on when to go just to change my mind and do something else; no indecision about where to go… All of this was probably helped by the fact that we are at Kielder Water for a long weekend and for Kath to run the Dark Skies 11 miler this evening. We had breakfast with the chaffinches (and a few sparrows), sat for a bit chatting and just being, watching the cloud and fog roll out and back in and then we headed out. Kath came with me for a little shake out run and to have a look at the start area and the route arrows to be prepared for this evening. So that added purposes took care of whether to go clockwise or anti-clockwise round Kielder Water (we went clockwise).
It was a stunning morning, the reservoir was like a millpond and the light was doing interesting things with reflections and seemed to make everything look sort of silver. I quickly noticed that runs 1 and 2 had been basically completely on the flat. The path here is not flat. It’s undulating and my lungs quickly told me what they thought of that. Still, the 8 runs of 1 minute each with 90 seconds walking in-between were fine really. We did 7 in one directions and then turned round and came back.
I was pleased with how quickly I recovered to normal heart rate and breathing – even if not entirely happy with how quickly both had shot up during the run. But baby steps, patience and trusting the plan will get me to where I want to be so I am doing just that. I wasn’t really sure about Couch to 5km. I have tried it before and I didn’t get on with it. I have always preferred the more permanent run/walk/run of the Jeff Galloway method. But over the last year I have also sort of feel that it is no longer doing it for me. Or at least it isn’t helping me get back into running properly. So let’s see how this goes. I am not saying I want to go and run a marathon or even a half without walk breaks. I think I am likely to always use run/walk/run for longer distances. However, I also think I need to build some baseline running fitness and a Couch to 5km which builds to running 30 minutes without walking seems like a good place to start.
Week 1 has been good. Roll on week 2 which consists of 3 runs that are all the same – Five 90 second runs with 2 minute walks breaks in-between. It has probably been quite a long time since I did 90 second running intervals but I am actually looking forward to it and 2 minutes feels like a very generous recovery period. So, now for hot tub, afternoon nap, stretches and then being Kath’s support crew for this evening.
It’s now nearly 2 months since our 3rd Dopey attempt. I should probably update. The short version is, we didn’t complete our 3rd Dopey. We didn’t start the marathon. Not an easy decision but the right one all things considered. Maybe I’ll do a more detailed blog about all of that at some point. For now what you need to know is that after our utterly lush massage on the Monday after the Dopey Challenge and 2 days after the half marathon, my knee felt weird and then went really painful. It stayed that way – particularly on stairs or when sitting down/standing up.
I went to the osteopath when we got home and he confirmed that I had a partial tear in my cartilage. So that’s annoying. I have therefore not run at all and actually if we are perfectly honest, I have done absolutely fuck all since we got back from Florida. I’ve made lots of plans for running, I’ve talked about running, I’ve made plans for other exercise and renewed my various apps etc and I have even signed up to join the new gym down the road when it opens on 21st March. But have I actually done anything? Nope! Nada. Nothing at all.
So when I went to a work thing Thurs/Fri I took running gear because sometimes starting again is easier outside of whatever silly routine I have fallen into. And I did it. I slept terribly, was awake from 3am and around 5ish started to seriously consider going out to run. It took me another half an hour to persuade myself to actually get out of bed and then I got sorted. I quickly looked for a Couch to 5km Programme and went for the first one I saw just to stop overthinking it. Week 1 is 3 sessions of walking 5 minutes to warm up, then running 1 minute and walking 90 seconds 8 times and then walking 5 minutes to cool down. I couldn’t be bothered with the warm up (I know) so I just marched across the car park and then set off. It was all fine. Around run 5 I got confused because I got to a big main road and was wondering whether to keep going along but it was already quite busy so I turned round and then I got a low battery warning. I assumed that was my run so set off and then got another beep which was actually the run but which I thought was a walk and then it was chaos. I think in the end I actually did 9 runs and 2 of them were 90 second ones… Close enough.
Today I went for run 2. Yes I actually went. I went through lots of excuses, including the fact that I helped Kath move our apple tree in its huge pot earlier and tweaked my back slightly. But I went and it was all fine. I tried to run rather than plod during the 1 minute intervals. I have got so used to just plodding very slowly because I have always been training for distance and was worried about keeping going for the distance. So I needed to remind myself that this is not about going far, just about going, building consistency and getting back into running. Let’s get this Couch to 5km programme done and then see where we are. 2 runs done. The next one is the same intervals and then we move on to week 2.
So it was 17 miles day today. Well actually 17 mile day was yesterday but yesterday things felt all wonky and weird for both of us so we went for a walk instead and moved 17 mile day to today. The plan was to get the train to Leeds and run back to Crossflatts. It started off with me at some point having turned off the alarm so we didn’t wake up in time for the train we were going to get out to Leeds. That nearly de-railed us but we eventually decided to just go for a later train which is fine on a Saturday as the car park as Crossflatts doesn’t fill up.
We got into Leeds and set off along the canal towards home. It was a gorgeous morning and the first couple of miles felt absolutely fine. My new running vest fits well and I easily sipped both water and fuel as we made our way through the first 5km and towards 4 miles. I was slightly disappointed with my pace but it was all fine and there were loads of herons which always make me smile. Throughout mile 5 my right calf tightened a bit and my right foot got pins and needles which took another mile-ish to sort itself out. Then my right hip flexor started niggling. All of this before we had even hit 6 miles. And of course that thought went through my head and bang – brain malfunction.
I managed another mile of run/walk but just after 7 miles I lost the mental battle. I am pretty sure that I was probably physically ok but I just couldn’t get there. It is so hard to explain and looking back just feels silly. I went from thinking all was fine and the run was actually pretty positive to allowing a tiny twinge to derail me completely – and I am cross and disappointed at myself for that. Immediately the importer syndrome kicked in. I had only got to 7 miles, there was no way I would be able to do Dopey – I wasn’t even worthy of trying. That spiralled into thoughts about just not being good enough, being too fat and too old to be out there running and that I was just foolish for even trying. For my stupid uncooperative brain, I had the evidence that I should just pack up and go home and bin all my running shoes right there.
We kept walking. Not that we had a choice in that anyway as there was nowhere to come off the canal to get a train. We just walked. I tried to walk relatively fast but I couldn’t get within Disney Pace. We shared a banana and just kept walking and walking and walking… Eventually I started to feel slightly more positive. I was still walking and while hips and feet weren’t exactly happy, there was also no real pain or anything signifying injury. I kept an eye on how long each mile was taking and did the maths – I was still within overall Disney Pace so the goal became to finish half marathon distance within that pace. According to Strava I did and according to Garmin I just missed it.
We had agreed to stop in Saltaire and have food and try and turn the day into a positive one. We got pizza and it was great and then we got the train back to Crossflatts. I have stopped spiralling and have got my brain back into a more positive space. We have agreed that as things stand we will give the first 3 runs of the Dopey Challenge a good go and then we’ll decide on strategy for the marathon. It may be that Kath just goes for it to get Dopey, it may be that we do it together and she tries to help me get round. We don’t have to decide right now and there is still a month of training left to go. Stretching and strength could make all the difference. I do still feel like a running imposter. I still feel like everyone we saw out there was judging me (they weren’t) and that I shouldn’t be taking up space in the running world. But I am back believing that those feelings are nonsense. I know I have as much right to be a runner as everyone else and I will eventually get back to believing it, too.
So 13.5 miles instead of 17, lots of nonsense in my brain but overall a good day and we go again tomorrow.
really (not) a runner 