Monday. Sometimes the hardest day of the week, and never more so than when a busy weekend has been had. I got up on Monday morning feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. If you’ve ever done a big physical event then you’ll know the feeling I’m on about. Devoid of energy, the body just feels like it’s trailing behind everything, and brain power feels like it’s on low power mode. Daily tasks become complicated problems to solve, and don’t ask anyone in this state to make any kind of decision. I feel this is when people end up making impulse purchases from shopping channels (why wouldn’t you want that hedgehog shaped toilet seat air freshener made from wicker and designed to sit on the toilet seat?) or poor life choices which you can’t get out of (of course it’s a good idea to commit to helping Joan at work with her village school tombola and raffle ticket selling and organising*).
So, dragging my weary ass out for a run on Monday (which is normally a rest day) because I didn’t run yesterday was pretty tough. I went in the evening after work and had to do it in stages. Eat. Get dressed. Charge watch enough to record my heart rate. Tidy up a bit. Load up rucksack. Drink some water. Go to the toilet. Drink more water. Check watch. Look at the internet. Put clothes away. Check time to see if it’s too late to go for run. Put on trainers. Eat. Put rucksack on. Put keys in pocket. Drink water. Go to the toilet. Check keys in pocket. Re-tie shoelaces. Find sunglasses. Look at the internet. Dig out headphones. Choose playlist. Look at internet. Fill water bottles. Look at time. Mentally chastise self. Step out of front door. Start watch. Run.
Tuesday brought more running, this time a cheeky 10km at lunch up and around the racecourse and back. Pretty slow and pretty ploddy this one, could definitely feel it.
Wednesday was another £2 training plan morning run of 8.5km with Elena and Dave, a beaut of a morning run and nice to have the company, especially at that time in the morning. starting to feel the legs ready for a rest day.
Only this week I didn’t get a rest day. Thursday went straight into heading up to Scotland to compete in the UK Challenge event with some work mates (well, I say workmates, I’d not actually met any of them before, so complete strangers is more of an accurate description) and it all started straight after dinner on the Thursday night. Running around Stirling like Anneka Rice in a non-lycra outfit solving puzzles and creating scrabble words. The whole weekend was a massive fitness fest with mind bending puzzles and no Mr Google to help. I’ll blog separately about it but basically it maybe wasn’t the normal training I’ve been doing (long slow runs) but it all counts as time on feet and active stuff. I’m not going to lie, it was bloody hard work.
But I met a great bunch of new people, and had an absolute blast. Gotta remember it’s all about the fun as well as the hard work. And we won an award. Not that we’re competitive but YAY. Novice team (ones who hadn’t done it before) winners.
*fictional examples only, I have never organised a tombola or raffle so don’t even ask me to
The Paps Life 