I’ve just finished Run 3 and it’s the end of a very long, difficult, drawn out Week. I don’t know how I got here, I’ve struggled with all three of them and this one in particular was a killer.
Normally after a run I cool down and feel awesome. I’m expecting the endorphins to kick in any moment now but just in case I’m going to eat a load of chocolate to get things moving.
So as many of you know, Week 5 is the one where s***. Gets. Real. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember a lot about the first two runs. All I know is that my stubby little legs were not ready and it was haaaaard.
Run 1, fair enough, three lots of five minutes is the logical next step and I would have loved to do a whole week of that to break me in. But no, only thing that got broken was my balls as the next run stepped it up to two eight-minute runs. Ok fine, push me, make me stronger but I need a two-day break before I get to that.
But to go from that to a solid twenty-minute run? I knew it was coming but I don’t remember it being this soon. This is the third time I’ve done this one. First time was all the way back in the magical year of 2018 when...
Well, that was unexpected. While I was writing this last night I accidentally got sprayed in the face by an automatic air freshener that decided to go off just when I was stood in front of it! I called 111 just to be safe and they wanted me to go to A&E just to be sure I hadn’t inhaled too much. Luckily after a few tests they were happy that I was ok and let me go but it’s not how I would’ve chosen to spend my Monday night, especially not with the huge Covid risk. There were a lot of people there and I tried to keep my distance but you can only do so much in a busy hospital so after all this I’ll be annoyed if I end up catching it from someone there.
Anyway after I got home it was 3am so I was in no mood to write, weirdly enough.
But yeah, first attempt at the twenty-minute run was in September 2018 and I really really struggled. I managed it somehow but didn’t feel great about running going forwards. I stopped soon after that because our baby was born and there wasn’t really much time for running after that.
Next attempt was in February 2019 and that went really well. I was working reduced hours as we were struggling at home with various things so I needed to be around more but for a few months it opened up a great running window for me in the afternoons. During that time I got all the way up to the end of Week 7 and if I remember correctly I smashed it. So there was definitely a time when I could comfortably do these long runs.
This time was better than the first but nowhere near as good as the second, so it could’ve been worse. Probably a good thing I did this run before I got sprayed in the face with potentially toxic chemicals because my mind was elsewhere after that. It happened right after my run so when I was on the phone to 111 one of the questions was whether I was sweating. I mean, yes I am but on this occasion I don’t think it’s related.
So big news with this run, I headed out fo the first time, which may not be the best decision when running at 11pm but I had to. I knew running around the garden for twenty minutes straight would be too repetitive and I would really struggle. I needed a change of scenery to keep my mind distracted from how tired I was. It nearly worked. Plus the flat concrete was much easier to run on than the bumpy lawn.
So once I’d got the baby to bed, which is a real mission now, I headed out. I say baby, he’s nearly two and he can now climb out of the cot so we’ve had to take the side of it off in case he hurts himself. Problem is he now has free reign so we’ve had to put a gate up to keep him in his room and he is less than thrilled about it. Now bedtimes last several hours as he won’t stay in bed. Instead he’ll stand at the gate screaming and calling us so all we can do is leave him to it for a bit and then try again. He goes down eventually but it takes a few tries.
So he finally decided to sleep and I was ready to head out. I wasn’t sure what music to run to this time, I needed something powerful that would help me go the distance but nothing really jumped out at me when I was scrolling through my music so I decided to go nostalgic and put Franz Ferdinand back on. Takes me back to 2004, it was just like doing A-Levels again except instead of falling asleep in history class, spending free periods playing cards in the common room and trying to avoid my clingy ex, I was puffing around the block and anxiously checking over my shoulder for murderers.
So with memories of buying my first legal bottle of wine and later throwing up the same bottle of wine running through my head, I headed out to the slightly but not very mean streets. It was nice and quiet at least. I had a pretty simple route to follow. Our house is on a main road but we’re on the edge of a residential area so at the end of that road I could turn right then right again to follow the quieter street running behind our house, then circle back round to the main road when I came out the other end.
It’s long enough to make a decent circuit but not so long that if I crashed at any point I wouldn’t be able to get home easily. So off I went, walking up the main road and I was on the quieter residential road when it was time to start running. I did not feel ready but I’d made it this far. During every run this week I’ve had serious doubts that I could finish it but carried on fuelled by nothing but stubbornness and a fear of failure.
I was still not feeling 100% and thought this would be the one that pushes me over the edge but fortunately that turned out not to be the case, although I definitely came close, so I was probably running on that edge for a lot of it.
The music helped, a little. It’s a great album boosted by the nostalgic value and I hadn’t heard it in a while so it was a nice trip down memory lane. Where the hell did the last sixteen years go anyway?
I started off alright but I think it was around five minutes when I started to feel it. Just a little tiredness in the legs but nothing I wasn’t used to so I thought ok, just do this another three times. Halfway through I was having a bit more difficulty with it and was genuinely wondering if I would make it so I decided to circle back round to my house at least and see where I was with it. When I got there I checked the timer and saw I had about seven minutes to go.
I knew I’d be kicking myself if I stopped now so pushed myself past my house and kept going. I’m glad it was quiet, I’m a very self conscious runner and right now I didn’t look or sound good. I did see a few police cars passing me and I wondered if they thought this guy running in a hoody might be up to something but they kept going each time so no problem there. Apart from that the only encounters I had were a guy walking his dog and two others guys cycling past, just close enough to trigger a little Covid paranoia.
So I hugged and puffed very slowly last my house and down the road, round the corner, past the church, past the community centre, past the houses and Jo Whiley reassured me there were only two minutes to go but I think she was lying because I kept running for another seven hours before it ended. But finally finally finally just as I was leaving the quiet road it was over.
That was definitely a mission but I think I was right to venture out, although there are quite a few areas bit very well lit along that road so I need to watch out. In theory I’ll be running again tomorrow to start Week 6 but that’s assuming I feel ready and the air freshener isn’t still lurking in my lungs. Plus tomorrow I get to find out if I’ve been made redundant or not so that’s a fun waiting game!
I feel good that I finished it but physically still not feeling great and life continues to be chaotic and stressful so it’s all up in the air at the moment. We’ll see.
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It IS all in the mind...
Week6 R1. Kill it. Kill it with fire. 
Ran the 'Chariots of Fire' beach
