FRESH START

Well, enough of all this maudlin mopery. While wallowing in self-pity has its obvious attractions, there comes a time when one must stop believing one was the victim of a cruel conspiracy of events, the prey of pitiless fate and the sufferer of general sorcery and simply get on with it. So I have put away my tools of self-harm. I have placed the gin bottles reluctantly back in the cupboard. I have dusted myself down, hiked up my pantaloons and jolly well got back in the saddle. Onwards and upwards. Oh yes!

I obviously made the classic mistake of doing too much too soon, not preparing sufficiently well, overreaching myself, training erroneously, picking a distance that did not suit me… Yeah, right. Or maybe I’m just shit at running. Luckily, John Bingham (of No Need for Speed fame – see posts passim) has advice for people like me in a sweet little thought bubble called An Exercise in Joy on p 127: “The first time you must stop a run early, drop out of a race, skip a race altogether or end up finishing much more slowly than ever before, consider it a victory. You’re evolving as a runner. Take it in your stride – even boast about it“. So ha! Yay, people! Look at me! I’m shit!

Anyway, I ambled back to the gym today. I did 5 kilometres because that’s the arsing distance I was supposed to do on Saturday and I am actually capable of doing it – as long as it is under controlled laboratory conditions in hermetically sealed environments with only the radio tuned crassly to Kiss 100 blasting away for company. My legs still seemed to be slightly worse for wear from Saturday’s hard surfaces and nasty, nasty nature so I had a modest walking break in the middle today, but then did a sprint at the end which sort of weighed it up. Obviously, ‘sprint’ has been redefined here at ShunningRunning as meaning slightly faster than I would normally run and probably a whole lot slower than most other people move during their cool-down.

Stats

Post-race recovery. Distance: 5 km. Run pace: 6.8 km/h. Time: Forgot to look.

BLOGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Again I had a chance to sneak a look at the students whose motivation I frankly admire. I can’t imagine what would make me go to the gym if I was young, nimble, fit, beautiful and (probably) really, like, empowered. Actually, I can imagine: nothing. I would do exactly what I did do at university which was sit around a lot and drink too much and eat cheese. And what happens when these kids get off the treadmill after 15 minutes and look themselves in the mirror? Do they go: Oh, well, I’m still young, nimble, fit and beautiful so that effort made fuck-all difference so I think I’ll come in and do this all over again tomorrow so that I can see fuck-all difference yet again. And, by the way, what’s that middle-aged hippo over there doing looking at me in a funny way?

What is unnerving is when there is a whole row of empty treadmills like there was today and one of the nimble ones comes and takes the one RIGHT NEXT TO MINE. Why? There are certain nationalities that seem to do this. I remember getting on an empty bus in Spain with a friend and we took a double-seat each in the bus and someone got on and came and sat down – yes, right next to me. I remember walking into an (almost) empty restaurant in Russia where only one couple was sitting eating in a booth with a longish table and benches. Where did the waiter attempt to seat us? Well, at least he did until I started hitting him over the head with a blunt balalaika.

I kept the run/walk charade level without increasing either walking or running pace. Today felt easy. The two-minute walk actually seemed too long at times and the 54 minutes (down from last session’s 63 minutes) were no problem. I felt I could have both walked and run faster, but as the programme seems to know what it’s doing, I stuck to the programme without deviation.

Hair of the blog

None whatsoever at all. Big anniversary yesterday (suffice to say that the standard stint in Siberia is longer) and despite night out and fancy restaurant drank nothing but water and Diet Coke. Yo me!

Blog’s bollocks

Week 9 of 13. 2 minutes walk. 7 minutes run. 54 minutes. Session 2 of 3. Walk pace: 4.7 km/h. Run pace: 6.7 km/h.