Bad Days – Page 4 – Not a Jogger

Burning the Candle

I’ve only just started increasing my mileage for this year’s marathon effort, but yesterday I was starving all day. This morning I felt so exhausted I had to force myself out for a run. Suddenly it all came flooding back – how I felt all the way through the 16 weeks of marathon training in 2010. Isn’t it funny how one forgets the general life that goes around the training, and only remembers the runs or injuries?

I am enjoying the hunger, though I need to be wary of it. I suspect that my body is is really craving protein, not KitKats. The tiredness I am not enjoying. Last night I stayed up to watch a terrible film (He’s Just Not That Into You) and hated myself for it. Why was I propping my eyelids open with Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck and the weedy guy from Entourage (not even the good-looking one!) when I had to get up again at 6am to run? To make myself feel marginally better, I did my ironing while watching it. It didn’t help. Nor did it help me understand why Bradley Cooper is considered to be attractive.

There’s not much to say about the run. I stuck to the flat 5 mile route and 8 minutes a mile pace. It was tedious but it’s another 5 in the bank. I will try to get an early night tonight but I’m seeing another film (The Artist) so hopefully I will be able to wait until afterwards.

Cold Runnings

Ugh. My cold is officially A Cold and I am officially a boring person who bores everyone as if she were the only person in the world ever to have A Cold. I can only apologise in advance, and promise to avoid the word ‘mucus’.

It was more of a struggle than usual to get up at 6am for this morning’s 5 miles. As well as coping with the Cold, I had our cat Bill to contend with overnight. He had been granted special permission to sleep on the bed due to having a(nother) torn up face from fighting, so the combination of trying to curl around him and continuing to breathe out of my blocked nose didn’t result in the best night’s sleep.

Once out of the house though, I was sure that five minutes’ running would be enough to clear the passages (sorry) and make me feel better. Alas, it was not to be. The constant feeling that I was about to sneeze stayed with me for the whole run. I used a whole packet of tissues and exhausted my total supply of motivation. By the final mile I was running as if pushed from behind by a broom handle in the lower back, arms and legs flailing pathetically.

It was not a vintage performance. I managed, just, to keep my pace below 8 minutes a mile which, under the circumstances, is nothing to be sniffed at.

(Sorry)

Not a Morning Person

Running before breakfast is hard. When I’m fit, it’s just about manageable. When I’m not, it’s like running through porridge.

This morning I felt exhausted before leaving the house. Tiredness of the general and physical kind are combining – why isn’t it christmas yet? I only have three days left at work – the shortest of the year – but they feel like the longest.

Enough of my moaning. The run was tough, shorter than I had planned and I was struggling to think of anything positive to say about it, but then I realised: I had run the whole way. I didn’t stop to walk. I may have only run 3 miles, but they were 3 whole miles.

I ate my porridge with a little less resentment after that.

Back on the Streets

I’m back!

This time for real. In trainers, on the streets, out of breath.

On Friday I laced up the shoes and headed out, but only managed about 400 metres before having to stop and walk. My stomach was killing me – a stitch combined with not having used those muscles for anything other than digesting cake for the past month. “Cake ache” – it’s a new one. I would have laughed but it started back up every time I started to run again. Even jogging was no good. I headed home depressed.

On Sunday I tried again. This time I was determined to run no matter what. It hurt, but I managed 5 miles with a few breaks to walk up hills. My muscles were all working fine this time, but my lungs were suffering. I shouldn’t be surprised, I haven’t even walked much in the past few weeks, but somehow I am quite shocked at how much difference it makes. ‘This must be how normal people feel when they go for a run’, I mused patronisingly.

I’m going to take it easy this week and run every other day, but I can’t relax too much as I have signed myself up for the North Dorset village marathon (can you imagine anything better?) on 6 May 2012 and so need to get the mileage up fairly swiftly. I reckon I’ll need a 16 week training schedule, so I have until 16 January to be running 35 miles a week.

Gulp.

A Very Quiet Weekend

Saturday dawned, cloudy and grey. I lazed in bed for a good couple of hours, will-I-won’t-I-ing. Eventually I scraped myself into my running shoes and lurched around the streets for 20 minutes like a zombie. The furthest I moved for the rest of the day was from the sofa to the kettle. I watched The Princess Bride, Harry Potter (5, I am way behind), and read the paper from cover to cover.

Sunday dawned, cloudy and grey. Mr N was planning an 8 mile tour of the Crouch – part of his “easy week”. I felt good, but how good? Not 8 miles good. I turned down his running chat for a solo amble with the latest This American Life podcast. In the end I ran about 7 miles, (with a minor walking break towards the end). The sun came out, the legs were steady and I even made it out of the house again that afternoon.

—

It’s hard to read about the New York marathon, or races of any kind, when you feel too tired to train properly, or you’re unfit or injured. Even on a good day, stories that should be inspirational can feel like accusations – you will never do this.

Seriously, though, running a marathon in just over two hours must involve witchcraft. It’s as fictional as Harry Potter, as much of a fairy tale as The Princess Bride. Not so many laughs, though, I shouldn’t think.

The Idiocy of Strangers

I am not a violent person. When I do get angry, it’s usually at myself or, occasionally, at more general things like racism, cheating, or people who wear leggings as if they were trousers.

When faced with someone jumping a queue, though, or a woman with visible knickers, I struggle to get angry at them personally. It just makes me sad, because I know they’re humans having bad days or fundamental lapses in judgement, and I too am a human who has bad days (though I would never leave the house in a pair of tights and a leather jacket).

This morning I got angry at a person, personally, in person. It is the 1st of November and I was running down Tufnell Park Road at 6.30am in the dark. Two men and a woman were filling the pavement ahead of me, tripping down the footpath on their way home from a Halloween’s carousing. They were young and tall and costumed, probably students with nowhere they had to be on a Tuesday morning. I ran close to the wall, annoyed that they didn’t seem to be making room when, just as I was squeezing by, the girl screamed into my face, then laughed as I jumped and dodged out of her way.

It was nothing. A split-second encounter.

I was so cross it took me the rest of the run to calm down. I wanted nothing more than to turn around, run after the girl and push her to the ground. I wanted to do it so much my fingertips ached with the longing to do it. I wanted to scare her. I wanted to show her I wasn’t scared. I wanted to tell her she was an idiot.

I didn’t. People love to goad or taunt runners, because they know that a 6.30am running type isn’t going to turn around and deck them. If you ever retaliate, or shout at them, they are offended, “I was only joking”, they say. Well, I’m not laughing.

Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”)

At work I have been asked to come up with a set of KPIs for my organisation. We need them so that we can proactively check progress towards our goals going forward, to make sure we’re not just picking the low-hanging fruit on a case by case basis, and that we are operating where our locus is. Or something.

It has occurred to me, whilst I attempt to come up with statistics that describe what a difference we are making to the quality of life in the UK (yes), that I am just not very good with numbers. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has watched me trying to split a bill in a restaurant, or played scrabble with me when I attempt to keep score. These things are what modern technology was invented for.

So why, when running, am I still calculating distance and speed using only my few brain cells? Last night, according to the plan, I ran 5 x 1200m at 10k pace. What I actually did was run for 5 minutes, wheeze for a minute, run for 5 minutes, wheeze for a minute, run for 4 or 6 minutes (not quite sure which), wheeze for about 2 minutes until I remembered it was time to run again but then forget which interval I was on, wheeze again, and finish it off with 4 minutes of sprinting.

I have no idea whether any of these 5 minute session was run at 10k pace, or was 1200m in length. I really need to measure a proper route, remember it and stick to it. That or I need a shiny new piece of technology to do it for me.

Woooah, we’re half way there

Week 4 of the 10k training plan = done.

This weekend included a tempo run on Saturday and a 10 mile ‘easy’ run on Sunday, taking the week’s mileage to 28. I meant to test out my speed with a timed 5k this week but failed I’m afraid, so I can’t report any effect yet. I’m not injured, or exhausted, which either means that the training’s going really well, or that it’s too easy. In either case, I’m patient (lazy) enough to wait four weeks until the race to find out.

As for the weekend’s running, well, in the words of Woody Allen, “I wish I had some kind of affirmative message to leave you with, I don’t. Would you take two negative messages?”. Both runs were terrible – the first because I was hungover, the second because there is no justice in the world. I’m ready for week 5.

The 40 Steps

Back to the Emirates this morning for Rocky II: Still Damp but Marginally Less So.

I definitely didn’t punch the air this time at the top of the steps. I felt like punching something, but not that. A bad mood from Wednesday insisted on staying overnight like an unwelcome guest. I ran with it on my back like a military pack filled with bricks.

Sometimes even a run can’t shake a black cloud. The real black clouds aren’t helping much – North London looked filthy in the gloom. I passed a homeless woman, tottering in slow motion on the Holloway Road, eyes open but vacant. She swayed as I passed, as if rocked by a cool breeze.

“Race” Report

So it turns out that 7 hours of gardening, no proper training and 4 slices of pizza don’t help you run a good 10k race.

Yesterday I ran the lovely Regent’s Park 10k, which happens on the first Sunday of every month. I am proud of myself for turning up, but not much more than that. I knew I wasn’t in for a pb – see above for my extensive preparation – but I vainly supposed I could finish within 44 minutes.

At the start line the threatened rain clouds dissipated promisingly. It was a big field but I kept up a decent pace over the first couple of kilometres. By the end of the first lap of three my legs felt tired but 44 minutes was still possible.

BUT THEN. As I passed the start/finish line and smiled at Mr N, it was as if the world had turned from technicolour into black & white. Immediately, everything hurt. Slight inclines were mountains, breathing was laboured. People running alongside me were suddenly running past, at an impossible pace, like the Keystone Kops. All I could think was, “I have to stop, I have to stop”.

I will stop at 5kms, I thought. At 5kms I slowed down to a morbid jog. I kept this up for 200 metres. There was a slight downward hill. I felt a bit better. I will make it to the end of the second lap, I thought. I picked up a tiny bit of pace. On the approach to the start/finish, through loud-hailed encouragements from the race director, I glimpsed Mr N waiting for me to pass. I knew I had to finish the race. “I’m just going to jog the rest”, I wheezed.

I started the third lap, stopped to drink half a cup of water, and finished the race. My jog improved to a steadier run as the finish line got closer, but was never less than painful. The only positive thing I have to say about this race is that it made me want to train for another one to expunge its memory. We’re signing up for the December 10k and I am going to crack 43 minutes.

And that, my friends, is an absolute promise.