Oh, dear

The cold developed, and blossomed, and this has been a very busy week of ministry, as you can imagine.  I have only run twice, a total of 8 miles.

My first run, on Wednesday, lasted just over an hour, and although fairly sedate in pace, left me feeling a lot better for having done it.  I was past the worst of the headcold, and it hadn't yet got to the annoying cough stage.  My second run was at parkrun on Saturday - in truth I felt I could hardly spare the time, but that made it seem all the more important to go.  And I was enjoying it, until the last half mile or so, when I noticed a niggling pain in my right calf.  It became uncomfortable enough that I had to walk the rest of the way - it didn't hurt when I walked, but did when I tried to run.

So, there we are - I appear to have strained a muscle in my calf, although how I have done so when running very slowly and gently, I can't imagine.  It's not painful.... until I try to do something more vigorous than walking.  Up and down stairs is slightly uncomfortable, but manageable.  The general advice of my running friends is that I'm looking at a couple of weeks' rest from running to allow it to heal, although any activity I can do without pain is OK.  But the best training for running is running, so this is all a bit annoying!

Christmas is just 3 days away, my cold has progressed to the annoying chesty cough stage, and I can't run at the moment.  Life is full of ups and downs, but all we can do is respond to them as they come. After Christmas, we have a little time to relax, so I'm going to take a break from blogging as well.  After all, there won't be any running to report.

So, I hope you all have a wonderful, peaceful Christmas, and a happy and healthy New Year.  I'll be back in January - hopefully with better news.

Riding the Roller Coaster of Life

My longest run on this easy week was a little over 9 miles and just over 2 hours.  I did 3 runs outdoors plus an intervals session on the treadmill, for a total of 18 miles.

That total is a little lower than I had in mind at the start of the week.  I dropped a run and had an extra rest day on Tuesday - partly because, as Monday wore on, I began to feel more and more tired, and partly because ministry is just so busy at the moment that I felt I needed to give the time to that.  I was a little concerned that after feeling so strong last week, a 'mere' 9 miles should have left me feeling like I needed an extra rest day.

However, by Wednesday evening I realised that the combination of Vicks First Defence and my immune system were losing the battle against that suspicious scratching feeling at the back of my throat. I woke up on Friday morning with a full blown sneezing, coughing, stuffy-nosed cold.  This morning I added a gravelly voice to the mix.  I was half-tempted to give parkrun a miss this morning, but I was down to volunteer as a pacer.  This is someone who deliberately runs to finish in an agreed time (which needs to be comfortable for them), in order to give a lead to a slower runner who is trying to beat that time.  I was down to pace 35 minutes, which is just as well, because I would not have run much faster anyway.  As it happened, nobody needed my services, but I did it to pace anyway, ran nice even splits with a bit of a speed-up at the end, and finished in 34:37.

After coffee and a shower at the Manor Sports Complex, I queued to post some Christmas parcels before heading over to Chesterfield Road for a coffee morning and a welcome bacon buttie, as I had not had breakfast.  Christmas is fast approaching, and my diary this week is fairly insane, with of course a lot of extra services which need preparing.  Ordinarily I would also be doing additional visiting as I take communion to housebound members - but it is not wise to visit frail people and cough and sneeze all over them.  Instead, I shall phone them all, explain why I will not be seeing them until New Year and hopefully have a good chat.

I'm not sure how much running I shall do this side of Christmas.  The standard advice is that, with a head cold, you are OK to run if you feel like doing so, whereas with anything chesty you are better not to. So, at the moment, I could run if I felt like it.  I must say, I did feel much better after this morning's run than I did before it!  But we shall have to wait and see, because colds are tricky beasts which can change from day to day.

I've written on here before about the importance of having a plan, and just following each step as it comes.  The other side of that is that you have to be a bit flexible, because sometimes life gets in the way of your plan.  It's important to have a plan but also not to be so totally wedded to it that you attempt to follow it 100% when circumstances make that unwise.  Many marathon runners won't be starting their mileage build-up until the New Year anyway, so there is plenty of time.  I would ideally like to run that half-marathon distance before Christmas, and complete 110 miles in December - I'm up to 48 so far.  But if the combination of work pressure and a small virus mean that can't happen, it's not the end of the world.

One thing that's not going to change, however, is the date of the London Marathon!!  17 weeks tomorrow I shall be toeing the line.... well-prepared, and ready to go.  Thank you for your support - it makes a big difference.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step

So runs the Chinese proverb.  Whatever your ambition or goal, it remains a dream until you actually do something about it. And if the whole is too big to contemplate, the thing to do is just to start.  Take each step, each day as it comes.  When you reach an obstacle, don't give up - work out how to get around it, or over it, or through it. That might mean a delay, or a detour.  But then you keep going - that's the only way to reach your destination and realise your dream.

Fundraising this week has taken a breather, but then, there is a certain major Christian festival coming up in just a few weeks time.  People have other things on their minds - as do I - so I'm content to let that lie until New Year.  The running, however, continues apace. Longest run this week of 3:09, but the terrain (hilly and mostly off-road on rough paths) meant I didn't quite reach the symbolic half marathon distance of 13.1 miles,  instead covering a smidge under 13 miles.  Total weekly mileage of 30 miles for the first time ever.  And (thanks to the automatic record-keeping of my Garmin watch and the fetcheveryone.com website) - the total mileage I have run since April has reached 496.  So, with a bit of poetic licence, and apologies to The Proclaimers:

And I have run five hundred miles
And I will run five hundred more
Just to be the one who's run
A thousand miles to raise two grand or more

(or should that be:  "... to end up stiff and sore"?)

Yes folks - the way my schedule looks, by the time I start the marathon next April, I will probably have run about a thousand miles.  In other words  for every mile of the marathon, I'll have run close to 40 miles in training.  They say that running shoes should be replaced every 300-500 miles as they lose their cushioning - I bought a new pair in September, which have already done 230 miles, so I'll probably be ready for a new pair in February.

But all that is in the future.  You can only train one day at a time - which is the only way you can live life, really.  Tomorrow is a rest day from exercise,  but on Monday I start another week.  This will be an easier one, perhaps a long run of 2 hours/9 miles, and a weekly total in the low to mid twenties. I'm happy to report that I have felt less tired this week, in fact I felt like doing some speed work on Thursday and Friday, and also ran parkrun this morning in my second fastest time ever.  So with a week of easy running ahead, I hope to feel full of energy the next time I do a 3 hour run. I will crack half marathon distance before Christmas.