Karen writes: I cant control my time!
So close to the end of the training programme, I have hit a couple of weeks of not seeming to be in control of my time. Co-ordinating treatment for the damaged calf muscles meant some extra days off, you can’t run on the day you have treatment, and if it was intensive, the following day might need to be taken off too. Its also not just a matter of clumping together all the runs you have missed, a balance of working hard and resting is still essential, especially taking time off before and after the weekly long run. The need to travel for important family commitments has also modified my plans, there is of course no question about such things taking priority. Then there are the unpredictable glitches, like last night I couldn’t leave home until after 8.30pm, and I can tell you it is really hard to leave a warm house that late on a winter evening, actually, I’ve been tired enough lately that I have been thinking about bed at that hour!
So I had an early dinner with the girls, got them to bed, and I was ready to disappear out the door the minute I could. But in spite of getting over what can be the biggest barrier of all to training...that of actually putting on your shoes...getting on the road didn't bring its usual pleasures and I admit the 90 minute planned run became a reluctant 45, I just didn't want to be outside. Silly though it seems, things do seem scarier at night when you are already reluctant. The flickering lights through household curtains become more eerie than cheerful, and it's a misty, mysterious, chilly and damp sort of atmosphere by then. I don’t know who got the bigger frights, me, or the assorted people putting their rubbish bags out for tomorrows collection, I must have appeared behind them like a spectre out of the gloom. And there was the old spaniel who wanted to run along, he spooked me with his eyes glowing fiendishly in the glow of my headlamp and I nearly fell off the curb when he trotted up ready to be friendly.
Today I also have to figure out how to get a run in after another unplanned glitch, it might take some creative thinking to find the opportunity for at least a short stretch of my increasingly twitchy legs. But the reason today is a good one, a new baby has just arrived, another wee nephew for my girls. So congratulations to mum, dad, and big brother, welcome healthy baby boy, couldn’t be happier about your safe arrival being the reason for my running schedule being interrupted!
So I had an early dinner with the girls, got them to bed, and I was ready to disappear out the door the minute I could. But in spite of getting over what can be the biggest barrier of all to training...that of actually putting on your shoes...getting on the road didn't bring its usual pleasures and I admit the 90 minute planned run became a reluctant 45, I just didn't want to be outside. Silly though it seems, things do seem scarier at night when you are already reluctant. The flickering lights through household curtains become more eerie than cheerful, and it's a misty, mysterious, chilly and damp sort of atmosphere by then. I don’t know who got the bigger frights, me, or the assorted people putting their rubbish bags out for tomorrows collection, I must have appeared behind them like a spectre out of the gloom. And there was the old spaniel who wanted to run along, he spooked me with his eyes glowing fiendishly in the glow of my headlamp and I nearly fell off the curb when he trotted up ready to be friendly.
Today I also have to figure out how to get a run in after another unplanned glitch, it might take some creative thinking to find the opportunity for at least a short stretch of my increasingly twitchy legs. But the reason today is a good one, a new baby has just arrived, another wee nephew for my girls. So congratulations to mum, dad, and big brother, welcome healthy baby boy, couldn’t be happier about your safe arrival being the reason for my running schedule being interrupted!
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