So, after having run just over a mile in 12 days and having a race on Sunday morning I figured that I’d need to drag my sorry ass out of the door and at least attempt something.
I’ve gone into a real slump when it’s come to running lately. There could be a number of reasons behind it but, equally, no one thing in particular. Whatever it is, I’ve seriously started to doubt myself and to question whether I could even call myself a runner anymore.
However, as I said, I’ve got a race on Sunday and the thought did cross my mind not to bother turning up … but because I’m not injured I know that a DNS beside my name would really eat away at me, and possibly launch me into an even more extreme downward spiral than the one I’m currently in.
So I had to go out tonight.
Also, my friend Cuffers is currently in Chicago ahead of the marathon on Sunday. He runs for Diabetes UK and was part of my Class of 2016 in London, as part of his fundraising efforts he organised a Virtual 5k to be completed this week so doing my run for that gave me the added impetus to get out there.
Because my legs haven’t been subjected to a run for so long I decided to adopt a run/walk strategy right from the start, in the hope it’ll get me back into the way of things. This has worked for me before after a period of inactivity so it’s tried and tested.
And, because I was doing 5k, I decided just to follow to my default route ie: along the dual carriageway to the industrial estate and back again. Nothing too strenuous and nothing unfamiliar.
As ever I found a strict run/walk strategy a little frustrating when I wanted to run on but the splits called for a walk … but I thought I’d be sensible and just stick to what I was told to do.
It wasn’t fast. Well, that’s not strictly true … during the running segments my Garmin constantly buzzed me to say I was going too fast so I sort of fell into something resembling interval sprints for a large part of the run.
There were also times when I ignored the instruction to walk, and I also started the run at the bottom of the hill on the Antrim Road rather than walking to the top as per normal – so, in effect, it was a little bit of everything tonight.
All in all, I’m pleased to have gone out and I’m feeling more confident ahead of Sunday now. I’ll possibly go for another run tomorrow just to loosen up further, but I’ll make a decision on that at the time.
Relive my run
HUFF, PUFF AND SHUFFLE 