Just a gentle first trot out after Sunday’s Great Manchester Run efforts. Legs felt slightly niggly and it felt strange running again, though have only had 3 days off… Didn’t get up to any great pace and found it a bit of a struggle to keep going – seems the race on Sunday took more out of me than I realised!
Just a 5k run in the rain. Garmin fouled up half way round so had to stop and restart and seemed to gain a hundred meters. Wasn’t sure if it was the rain or the loose battery casing again. In any case is good to be up to 5k – need to be up to 10k by May!!
Mini comeback run – not been out for 11 days due to having yet another cold, which I managed to ward off somehow with lots of fruit, zinc and vitamin C. Still had some symptoms like stuffy nose and sore throat, but figured if I am to get fit for the Great Manchester Run I can’t afford to have 2 weeks off while it clears completely, and besides was feeling fine.
Thought I might manage 3k and implode, but mostly felt OK – got quite puffy at the end, COULD have gone on for 5k, I think, but didn’t want to push it too much on first run in a couple of weeks. Thankfully looks like I haven’t list a huge amount of fitness and who knows the short break from running may have done me good!
Wanted to try to get at least 5k in, and wanted to do a fresh route, or at least one I haven’t done for a while, so opted to do the Mill Lane circuit. This is an undulating route, starting with a mild incline, then featuring a sharp elongated descent, before a series of gradual but tough inclines. First k was relatively flat, and then used the descent to coast and get into gear, then took the inclines quite gently. At 4k I decided to try to keep going all the way up to 6k, and somehow managed it, even injecting some pace into proceedings as I felt endorphins swimming along my spine 
Noticed a problem with my Garmin, in that the battery housing seems a bit loose, so the battery contacts aren’t very flush, which might explain why the Garmin’s been switching itself off recently. Tried to wedge them in as best as possible, then set off, hoping to do at least 5k, and take it slowly. Noticed at someo point the battery issue had had an unknown side effect – my training assistant lap timer had reset itself to a mile, instead of the usual 1km, but I seemed to be running under 10 mins per mile just about, so that was good.
Got to 4k and was struggling, then at 5k had a second wind for about half a k, before staggering more or less through the final half k to reach the grand total of 6k! Hard work though!
Bit of a crap run. Set off, checked Garmin after a bit – Garmin had switched itself off after finding the signal and starting to count 
Switched it on again, walked until it found a signal once more, and off I went again. Started to feel tired and breathless and rather unmotivated. So my planned 5k was aborted at 2.5k (approx cos of on the blink Garmin) and couldn’t go on any more really.
Am uncertain whether it had to do with change in breakfast – ate bowl of new sugarless porridge, and didn’t have banana(s) today – my body really felt like it was missing out something,and I just couldn’t get in gear.
Oh well. 
It seems to be the benchmark for when I am starting to achieve some kind of fitness again – or at least one of them. The 5k milestone always seems significant – I have gone from running a couple of miles, to running over 3 miles, and to me means my basic fitness level has been achieved, and that 5k can now be a platform to start increasing speed a little and gradually adding more distance. I’m not running that quick at the moment – time today was 31:31, but I wasn’t trying to run too quickly, just settling into a comfortable (relatively speaking – I was breathing very hard by the end!) pace and going with it.
To run 5k in under 30 minutes will be the next milestone, but may take a few more runs to get there, I also hope to get above 5k in terms of distance soon too, and keep fingers crossed I stay injury free and can run 10k by May 15th!
Left the house to find normality turned upside down as the gas mains work begins in earnest. Diversion signs everywhere, tractors, steam rollers, men with pneumatic drills (why are women never part of these wrecking crews, you see male nurses, female cops, female firepersons, etc, and I even had a female gas engineer fix my boiler once, but I have yet to see a woman digging up the road..?). Anyway, rather than play chicken with the steamrollers and turn my route into a steeplechase of molten tarmac for waterjumps and diversion signs for hurdles, I headed away from it all and found some relatively quiet streets and did a few loop-de-loops to make up my target distance of 4.5k.
Again, I planned to do at least 4k, and at 2.5k was ready to use my getout clause, but somehow mustered the strength to carry on and complete the 4.5k – and without incident with tractors, steamrollers, molten tarmac, or pneumatic drill-wielding wrecking crews 
Time to slowly build up the distance, so planned 3.5k-4k today – of course whenever I set out the lower figure is to help with the psychological side of running – it gives the lazy part of me a get out clause Almost invariably however, I end up running the max distance I have set myself, in this case 4k, and it felt good to reach that barrier. I even injected a little pace in places, but was certainly struggling by the end. Next target is 5k and then onwards and upwards – am just taking things in stages at the moment, hoping to be able to run 10k by May and not even thinking of a target time for the Great Manchester Run!
Planned to do 2 miles, which eventually panned out to 3.5k as I felt I had some left in the tank, plus some interesting thoughts accompanied me on today’s run.
Less than 1km into the run, as often happens, I saw a funeral cortege pulling away from a house ahead of me. I had no idea who it was, whether they had lived to a ripe old age, or whether it was a tragic loss, but there seemed to be a lot of cars pulling out after the hearse; it was obviously someone whose friends and family had suffered a significant loss.
But it coincided with the point in a run where I usually start to suffer as my heart and lungs begin to struggle to pump oxygen to my hard working legs, and it struck me that as much as people often describe struggling during a run as “feeling like they are dying”, it is very much the opposite – it is a sign of being vibrantly, crucially, exquisitely alive. Rather then try to distract myself from the growing distress, I let my awareness rest on it, and wondered about that person in the coffin – what would they give to feel their lungs struggling like this, breathing hard, beginning to hurt, but so very much alive? And I realised that every moment can be like this – on day I will be that person in the coffin, no longer breathing, gone… But this is my time to be conscious, to savour every sensation, every moment, to not shun experience but drink it in for what it is, the glorious, visceral, beautiful feeling of being alive.
