Is it worth it?
Is it worth all the hours of training and the buckets of sweat?
Of course it is. It’s just that sometimes when it’s dark or you’re feeling tired and weary and quite frankly there’s a bottle of something chilling in the fridge, there really is no option about whether to run or not. (more…)
It’s been a while.
Since the beginning of December I’ve had both of the flu-like viruses that have been doing the rounds, suffered the demands of Christmas and been snowed in for what seemed like weeks. (more…)
I started running when I was approaching 40 and decided that the best parts of my life weren’t necessarily behind me.
I’ve been entering and running races for three years as they’re a great way of making me train, of pushing my distances and, when I can muster the effort, of increasing my training. (more…)
When I run I think, I make decisions, I plan and organise and draft what I’m going to write in my next blog.
When I’m running, generally the only things that are required thinking are ‘lift foot, put foot down, lift foot, put foot down’, plus the occasional ‘avoid pot hole/curb/obstruction’, which makes it easy to give my brain free reign to churn over the daily activities. (more…)
For a variety of reasons, running has been de-prioritised of late. I’ve missed it and have stared wistfully out of the window on occasions when faced with an oversized inbox or another spreadsheet. But sometimes work or family or the sofa just have to come first. (more…)
Autumn has landed, with winter hot on its heels.
In fact, I think we bypassed most of the warm, bright, autumnal days that make autumn in English such a special thing and went straight for frosts, fog and zero˚C. (more…)
Blood, sweat and tears
Like gaining weight, losing fitness is a snip if you just ignore the fact that not going for ‘this run’ or ‘that run’ will make a difference to your overall ability.
I don’t have a fitness problem; I don’t exercise enough and my ability to run 3 miles before work takes longer or just stops being realistic: no problem. (more…)
In most areas of my life I like order; I like neat and tidy, I like the right place for everything and everything in its place; deadlines and achievable goals.
Weirdly, with running, I swerve away from order, straight lines, neat and tidy.
I ran a pretty good 6.5 miles recently. The sun shone, the air was warm as I headed out and, despite being somewhat off peak fitness, I enjoyed it. (more…)
I’m not sure if I can adequately portray how little of a morning person I am.
Mornings are for sleeping; lying in bed and listening to the radio, all the time thinking “I should really get up in a minute”, whilst not.
Pretty much all the training runs I’ve done in the past three years have been afternoon or evening runs, with the odd ‘just before lunch’ run, but NEVER before the rest of the world is up and at ‘em. (more…)
