Week 8 run 1 - return to Farmoor Reservoir - best run ever!

[iain-strachan]

Before I started this course I could never have imagined how much it would have improved my general fitness - being somewhat overweight as I am.

I noticed it today - we were moving office (a short distance on the same site), so I had spent most of the day hefting around furniture, tea-crates etc, totally unlike my sedentary job at a computer screen. At one point I ran up four flights of stairs to get to the office on the second floor, and realised when I got to the top that I wasn't out of breath! So many times before I've run up those steps and ended up gasping and saying "I'm so unfit!" Not today it seems!

Then in the evening I returned to Farmoor reservoir, where I ran last Friday, to see if I could get the whole way round this time (about 4.6 k). Finished it easily, though I still stuck religiously to a steady pace (7:20 - about 7:45 per km). When it got to the 28 minutes and Jo called time, as a last minute decision, I thought I didn't need to stop, and so carried on till I'd done 30. Cheating? I don't know, but now it means I have no fear about Week 9 - I know I can do it because I already have done it.

There is plenty to see to take your mind of the running and keep you occupied. I saw:

My shadow running alongside me on the grassy slopes to my left.

The sunlight dappled on the water.

A flock of birds taking off from the reservoir wall and circling round.

A group of small black ducks paddling near the edges

A swan with his ungainly gait walking down to the water's edge.

It is no wonder so many people say running is good for your mental health, because it takes you out of yourself, and reconnects you to your surroundings. It seems much like the practice of mindfulness, because you are totally living in the present moment.

[Bluebirdrunner Graduate]

Super Iain😊...

No worries about Week 9 now...hope you have a great Graduation Week.

Think we know where you will be running 😄xxx

Good luck

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

You sir, are an addict...........great isn't it!

[iain-strachan Graduate in reply to IannodaTruffe]

Hi there thanks for the comment. I guess I am. I was very sad to read your post about having prostate cancer, and wish you the very best going forward with the treatment. But your post also managed to be inspirational, especially the bit about drinking in the landscape while running through it being so different from just walking through it. I felt, on reading it after my first Farmoor run, that I knew exactly what you meant, and it inspired me to write my post above.

[IannodaTruffe Mentor in reply to iain-strachan]

Running stirs something very deep and almost primeval in me, giving me a profound elemental appreciation of the world I live in which is almost religious in its power. I hope it brings you as much joy as it gives me.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Keep running, keep smiling.

[iain-strachan Graduate in reply to IannodaTruffe]

I certainly will. Absolutely agree about the profound elemental appreciation of the world - kind of like a secular spiritual experience, if one can use such an expression. Tonight's mindful vision was the rays of the sun coming through the clouds, reflected on the surface of the water, and moving across the ripples as I ran round the circumference.