The last few times I've run it's felt like really hard work. Admittedly it was a stressful week but it's demoralising to think that each step is going to be an effort. I even used the excuse of 'weather' to not run on Saturday and Sunday. All a bit of a downer.
Today I woke up determined to run, or rather the alarm woke me and I switched it off and went back to sleep for an hour and a half and then woke up determined to run.
Made a coffee and drank a couple of glasses of hot water, did some dynamic stretches and we set off. There was a chilly easterly so Mr OBK ran away on his own to warm up. As he retreated into the distance I decided to listen to some music so tuned in to BBC 6 Music, Lauren Laverne. Good move! The first track I heard was 'Champion' by Warpaint (never heard of them before). The gist of the lyric was 'I'm a million years old, I'm a champion' which was EXACTLY what I needed to hear. Then it went on to 'Breathing in, breathing out, and here it is I got you'. How perfect was that? I slipped into a rhythm, faster than I've been running lately but as long as I ignored what the heartrate monitor said it felt pretty effortless.
My plan was 5k but half way through I decided I could do more. It was wonderful to be out in the fields again, not too much mud apart from one short stretch where we had to cut alongside a field. I was happy to see sheep in a field that was fenced off just before I went away.
We cut along the sea wall and ran back home, taking a detour to bring the length of my run up to 7km, and husband's up to 8km as he'd run back to me half way through so covered a greater distance. I could have gone further but don't like running on pavements. It was such a relief to feel like this at the end of the run.
So thank you Lauren, you've put me back on track!
week3run1 ✅. 3 x 17 mins with 1 min walks. 
How did your parkrun or (not)parkrun go?
week 2 begins! 
