Keep running up those hills

When will I learn? Don’t try and make runs fun!! Just put in the miles. This weekend I had a simple task – run easy for 80mins. The weather was beautiful. I was by the seaside (or at least considerably nearer to it than I normally am). I found a seaside town with a 1.6M esplanade. I figured I could just plod back and forth for as long as I needed to.

Only, I got drunk on the power. Learning that I sometimes quite enjoy running has had a strange effect on me. I didn’t want just to get it done. I wanted to explore. To run somewhere beautiful. To run with joy.

So I decided not to plod back and forth along that lovely, tarmac’ed, flat-as-a-pancake esplanade, and instead I hatched a crazy plan. I would run the coastal path.

I will go down with this ship

I love a good quote or mantra as much as the next person. Current faves include: “A ship in harbour is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for” (which reminds me constantly to step out of my comfort zone and do things that scare me), “hold the vision, trust the process” (which reminds me that it’s ok not to see results overnight and that consistency is key), “if not now, then when, if not us then whom?” (which reminds me that there might not be a tomorrow and that life is for living – and enjoying, and changing – now) and “though she be but little she is fierce” (self explanatory that one, I think).

Could it be magic?

The voice in my ear has been switched off.

If that sounds kind of dramatic, that’s bc it is. And it’s not. All at the same time.

Really there are two voices in my ear. There’s the one that comes pouring from my headphones, that has so far been Debbie Voiles, or Bryony Gordon, or Bella Mackie. It’s the voice that takes me away from what I’m doing. That gives me something else to concentrate on. Something to distract me. Something that helps the time pass. It’s the voice that drowns out the traffic. Drowns out chatter of people around me. Drowns out the noises of the city, or the south bank, or the suburbs.

But that’s not its main function.

Dedicated follower of Fashion Week

I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. No, that’s not true. Of course I do. I was thinking “I loved my run on Tuesday along the river. Repeat.” And that’s perfectly sensible. Except that all the conditions were different.

Tuesday’s Run: 7am.

Sunday’s Run: lunchtime

Tuesday’s Run: Weekday.

Sunday’s Run: Weekend.

Tuesday’s Run: normal day.

Sunday’s Run: HALF TERM.

Take another little pizza my heart.

Last week was not easy. I mean I’ve had worse weeks, obviously. But last week was the gift that just kept on giving. There was Wednesday when I felt like a failure after jacking in a training session half way thru. On Thursday my trainer was away and so, in place of our usual session and after Wednesday’s shitshow, I struggled through a lame-ish HIIT workout then spent the rest of the day trying not to beat myself up for not having done more. But the pièce de résistance (journée de résistance?) was Saturday.

Tears on my treadmill

Today, I gave up. I was halfway thru my third interval (of five), halfway thru my whole session, and I just stopped. I’d had enough. It was too much. I had nothing in the tank – physically I suppose, to some extent – but also metaphorically. I was knackered, disheartened and crying.

So what brought me to this point?

Something inside so strong

I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at that title thinking “uh oh, here she goes. This is going to be a self-congratulatory treatise on how strong she is inside. How years battling mental illness have turned her into a warrior woman, resolute in the face of her anxiety and depression, standing steadfast against her inner demons and self loathing, like Boudicca facing down the Romans. Only with better clothes. And less murder.”

Well strap in kids, cos you’re not on the ride you think you’re on.