Keeping trying

[Omiah]

I haven't posted for a while, but you are often in my thoughts as a warm supportive place to be. So today when I saw a post, I thought I would share. It's a long time since I ran 10k and I was working back up to it - and hoping to build from there, but on an 8k run I found I couldn't - just couldn't go any further. And the rest of the day was a dead loss - I was profoundly tired. And the next run, I went backwards (as in ran less). It's a bit scary - makes me think my ageing body is maybe telling me about something I can't do any more. But I decided to "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light". So I have put 10k in a box for now and I am still running 3 times a week (with core exercises on other days) at lower distances. Maybe in a week or two I'll start a programme for 10k but right now it's the most I can do to get out of bed and out of the door, so I am grateful for those gifts.

[nowster Graduate10]

You've had a few months off. It's normal to need to gradually work up the amount of activity again.

You might need to "go gently" rather than "rage rage" for a few weeks until you rekindle that light.

Best of luck. 👍

[Omiah Graduate10 in reply to nowster]

Thanks for this. Thing is, I didn’t take time off. Haven’t posted in a while but I never stopped running- it just took a turn for the worse one day as I was building back up. I will rage gently!😀

[damienair Administrator]

I’m in the same boat. I’m trying to build my running back up again too. I find with 10K it’s good to build it up week by week. Run 3 days as you are and just pick one of your runs as a longer run. Start at 5K and every week add 500 meters onto that run. I can manage 7K at the moment and will be gently adding to that distance.

[GTFC Graduate10]

So much here that's actually really positive:

You are going out of the door

You are consistent

You are brave

The rest will come. Hydrate well across the week, hopefully sleep well too and definitely keep the runs steady because it doesn't really ever become the distance, it's just knowing you can do the time. It'll come. Keep out there 🙏

[Omiah Graduate10 in reply to GTFC]

Thanks for the feedback - all the support has really helped and today I came back to my plan and did 9k. Don't really know how but it was fantastic!

[GTFC Graduate10 in reply to Omiah]

👆👆👏👏👏👏👏

[kjm20 Graduate10]

Hi Omiah, your post reminded me of how I was feeling about my running for much of last year, particularly the thought that I was too old to do longer distances either because of injury or as you describe, just not feeling I could go any further.

Somehow, I managed to pull myself out of my dispirited slumps. I think what helped the most was to start accepting where I was at the time rather than beating myself up for not being where I thought I should be. I know that this is easier said than done but knowing that I didn't want to stop running even if I couldn't go any further or faster, helped me. Slowing down helped me considerably.

I'm enjoying my running much more now and I did finally get to 10k just a few weeks ago. Realistically I know that I'm likely to have more downtimes at some stage but will try to carry on doing what I can when it happens and as nowster says, go gently.

It's brilliant that you get out of bed and out of the door - after all it's still such a small percentage of people that do that. Best of luck.

[Omiah Graduate10]

Thanks KJM, your reply has really helped.