Getting back out: I seem to have spent quite a... - Bridge to 10K

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Getting back out

Gwenllian1 profile image
Gwenllian1Graduate10
10 Replies

I seem to have spent quite a few weeks on a “one step forward, two steps back” trajectory. I’m trying to get back to 10k and on 2 December I managed 9k and it seemed within reach. Since then I’ve had a stinking cold (not COVID though) and I’ve only done two runs in nearly three weeks. I started to feel I was losing it and that all my fitness was just going down the drain. It’s coming up to three years since I started couch to 5k and I have a horror of getting so unfit that I have to start again. Not sure I’d have the willpower to put myself through it if I was as terribly unfit as when I did it the first time !

So this morning I decided I could breathe again and I really had to run before descending into the excess of Christmas in case I felt I could never run again. I put my running kit on when I got up, spent a couple of hours faffing about on domestic things and then out I went. I was going to walk/run if I needed to but I was going to do 5k in some fashion or another.

And it was fine, better than fine. I was slow as slow can be (49 minutes for 5k which even for a snail like me is a crawl) but I ran it all. I poddled along, watching the birds flitting in and out of the hedges, feeling my legs happily trundling along. My breathing was easy and I just felt at home somehow. I’m a bit inclined to record everything, to follow training programmes and to compare my performances all the time (only with myself, no point in comparing with other people because I’m always slow as slow) but it was just lovely simply to be out there, running for the pleasure of it. It made me realise that at 67, a stone overweight and with a weakness for a glass of wine and some cheese and biscuits, I am still, astonishingly, a runner. It seems to have become just something that I do. That might be my last run now until after Christmas but I feel I’m ending the running year smiling.

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Gwenllian1 profile image
Gwenllian1
Graduate10
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10 Replies
nowster profile image
nowsterGraduate10

"Just something I do." 👍👍👍

Gwenllian1 profile image
Gwenllian1Graduate10 in reply to nowster

That’s it really isn’t it! Somehow something that was never part of my life has become “just something that I do”!

Fionamags profile image
FionamagsGraduate10

That sounded fab! That uber slow run was exactly what was needed to inject some joy and confidence back into you. It sounds like it worked!!!!

Gwenllian1 profile image
Gwenllian1Graduate10 in reply to Fionamags

It really did get me back on track Fiona! I think sometimes just taking the pressure off yourself helps. I'd been worrying that I'd lost fitness but it looks ok after all! Yay!!

Mormor1 profile image
Mormor1Graduate10

Loved your post and it really resonated for me as I was in the same kind of thought spiral a few weeks ago...a long slow run gave me confidence again that I hadn't list all fitness. We ARE runners!!

Gwenllian1 profile image
Gwenllian1Graduate10 in reply to Mormor1

I still find it hard to realise that I'm a runner! But I am! Who would have thought it?!🙂

Granspeed profile image
GranspeedGraduate10

Lovely! Merry Christmas! Nice to know you are trundling along happily again. 👏🏼 I am limited by Life’s constraints to about 40 minutes at the moment and I frequently do about 4K, so let’s not knock the snail’s pace. It gets us there! 😄

Gwenllian1 profile image
Gwenllian1Graduate10 in reply to Granspeed

I'm a big fan of slow! The great thing is if I go slow enough I can go for ages!

Longsocks profile image
LongsocksGraduate10

A wonderfully inspiring post Gwenllian1, thank you. Glad to hear you are feeling better and have retained your fitness and motivation : )

Gwenllian1 profile image
Gwenllian1Graduate10 in reply to Longsocks

It's really encouraging to find that fitness lasts if you just keep getting out there!

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