Feel the burn

Just got back from a seven mile Sunday evening jaunt in the rain - the perfect way to end a week (or should that be start the week, I'm never sure if Sunday is meant to be the beginning or the end). Despite the drizzle it was a lovely run, reminding me again why I love living in Bristol - starting from my inner city suburb I ran seven miles, with barely a car or a main road to be seen (only through Clifton village, over the suspension bridge, and at the bottom of Ashton Court was I on main/busy roads - maybe two miles max).

As well as congratulating myself on how great it is to run near where I live, I also spent much of the run pondering on how much my thighs were hurting. Probably this should be no surprise - since I started training for this half marathon my weekly milage has probably doubled. And yet I don't remember these 'long slow runs' hurting so much last time I trained properly. Well, I don't remember them hurting at all.

Now, rationally, that can't be possible, and once again experience brings memory (and its morphine like ability to blur the sharp edges) into sharp focus. When I stopped this evening I thought my legs would seize up, and I know just standing up from the sofa now is going to hurt. The bad news is I only did about half the distance of the half marathon, at a pace about a third slower than I might aspire to do on the day. The good news is the half marathon isn't until September. Hopefully the long slow runs won't hurt so much by then.

Running log
Distance: Seven miles (ish)
Pace: About 10 minute mile pace
Location: Bristol harbour, Clifton Suspension bridge, Ashton Court park

View this running route at FriendFit.com

R is for running

It had to be running for r really, given the original point of the blog. And running is a strange thing. For so long I looked on in pity as my friends flogged their knees around their marathon schedules. There was no envy, jealousy or sense of self-regret. Nothing like that - I just really didn't get it.

And then, before I knew it, I was the one with a four run a week timetable. The first prompt was as a necessary evil when I was rehabbing after knee surgery (the result of an injury pursuing my true sporting passion), but serendipitously I found I quite enjoyed it, and a couple of 10k and half-marathons was just a natural consequence. And I can genuinely say I enjoy training regularly - the space to clear your mind, the sense of incremental gain, the weight loss, the endorphins!

And then, as suddenly as the birth of my second child, I wasn't running anymore. Literally overnight, the combination of lack of time, lack of sleep, and lack of energy meant I moved into a space where the thought of running became a huge, challenging, chore. So I stopped.

And now, two year's later I'm trying to regain the middle state of enjoying a regular routine of running again. In many ways, I'm learning, it's a bit like blogging. If you're fresh and have the time, it's easy to get started and great once you get going. But as soon as you're jaded, stressed, or just lack time it can become a millstone. So, once April is over (I know I'm dropping off the schedule, but I'm not going to let this A-Z beat me!) and I'm over this horrible cold (which is still giving me problems) I'm going to make sure my running and blogging becomes a bit more balanced.

We'll see.