Disaster of a Day

I'm not going to start this with 'this is so hard' like I said, I expect that now.  I don't know if it's the fact that my training was interrupted this week which threw the programme out the window completely or if it's the fact that I haven't felt great for a while but yesterday when I went out I felt like the guy in the lead diving suit and for the first time in five and a half weeks I well and truly failed to achieve my goal.

We did a great 30 minutes on Sunday, I was so chuffed.  I even found a fairly local 10 mile run for the end of January that we can do which falls in perfectly with the programme.  On Monday when I got home I did a 20 minute 'lope in the lounge'.  I can't go out in the dark as I have no fluorescent gear so no-one would see me and I really don't fancy it at all - is that really pathetic?, anyway, I decided on 'lounge loping' in bare feet (trainers are quite dirty now) within a couple of minutes I realised the value of the mid-foot support system,  I had pains in parts of my legs I didn't know existed before, I wasn't sure at the end if I had gone forwards or backwards in training terms.  Tuesday when I got in I felt awful and just couldn't face loping anywhere under any circumstances so I declared a rest day and sat in front of the fire.

Yesterday was supposed to see the introduction of 'running'.  I should have jogged 10 minutes, run for 5 then jogged for 15.  I decided that it might be best to do the day before's 25 minute lope and bring in the running the next day.  I was on my own as the coach was at work.  10 minutes in I wanted to take off my jacket and that's when it all started to go wrong.  I couldn't lope and extract my hand from the sleeve whilst trying to hang on to my phone - I use the phone for timing, I don't make calls on the way round!.
I was doing this weird kind of sideways crab lope to try to swing the sleeve off but it wasn't working so I stopped for a few seconds to organise myself but when I set off again my legs did that 'Uuurrrrhh, nope' thing again, my brain said 'Oh yes you are' and the legs went 'not a chance - not another step' I then had quite a long, rather dejected walk to get home.  I must have looked a bit sad, all done up in my running gear, walking!  I could feel the sympathy every time I passed someone along the road, even the ducks looked embarrassed when I passed them!.  Oh dear I thought, not a runner after all.  I was truly gutted, I thought that's it - funny how you feel the failures so much harder then the successes.

In the evening I went in search of inspiration, I looked on the discussion groups under 'lead legs' I came up with a few odd groups but eventually I found what I was looking for, it would appear many new and old runners suffer from this problem.  There were lots of encouraging words but again the answer which leaped out at me said 'sounds like you're not up to it, maybe you could defer your entry until the next year'

I decided to go in search of a quote, I like a good quote and there are many 'quotes for runners' my favourite, for this particular moment, was this:

'Believe that you can run farther and faster.  Believe that you're young enough, old enough, strong enough and so on to accomplish everything you want to do.  Don't let worn out beliefs stop you from moving beyond yourself'

John Bingham

With this quote in my head we went off again today and we cracked the 25 minutes.  So, on we go again, me,  Madi and my new mate, John Bingham ......