Please don't judge

Sometimes I wonder why I carry on running. I find the motivation to do it difficult, and swimming is more my natural sport. 

As a result of struggling with mental health difficulties this year (and still struggling) running has been much harder this year than it was last year. As a result of not making it to training because of low feelings,  I don't have the miles in my legs as I did this time last year, my running times and distances are not as good as this time last year. This makes me cross with myself, then I start thinking that I can't hen do something, which in turn switches off the motivation, and cycle goes round and round and round.

As I write this I am making my usual pre-run breakfast of porridge with juice, and then it'll be a cuppa. Today it's a 5 mile race, which is also our club championship race as well. Not that I will win a prize. I entered because I wanted to do one thing a month for the running club. This contributes to my #fortyb4forty challenge as well. Plus, I do want to prove to myself that I am capable of doing something.

I definitely don't have 5 running miles in my legs, but 5 walk/run miles, and I can stride out pretty quickly. But I have such a heavy feeling that I don't want to race today. I'm going to go, as I am picking someone up on the way. All the feelings of being last, a failure, what if I start crying because I get anxious on the way round,what if I struggle because it's really windy. These feelings are so real for me at the moment.

I wish my blog could always be an uplifting and inspirational blog that running is fantastic and I love it. I don't love it. I do like it, a lot of the time, but today this is what I feel at times. I could just ignore what's happening inside me, but I can't. These feelings really bully me, and take over. 

So, I will post later post-race.

Training in the dark

I really struggle with training during dark evenings. By rights, when it gets dark, that's me preparing to snuggle down, and to try and break that is incredibly hard. I wonder what is the right combination of clothing to wear depending on what the temperature is. What if I get too hot, too cold. What would I do with excess clothing I don't need to wear. (Even now my children are snuggled in their duvets watching TV.)

Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!!!

Freezing!!!!! This was the temperature this morning at 8.30am and I went (against my natural instincts to stay in the warm) to join a running group going out.

I struggled. Running when it's cold is actually quite hard, and it takes a very long time to warm up, despite wearing double layers on top. My walking distance was longer than it had been on Thursday as a result but I'm not worrying about it. I'm just celebrating that I went out!!!! But it was really pleasant being out.

So that's another  4.5 training miles in the bag. 

Entering races

Three running events entered recently, all club participation ones as well, including our club championships race, but I'm certainly not going with the expectation of winning anything. These are all in aid of my challenge, to participate as a running club member, and to include training for my half marathon event next April.

Tomorrow morning I'm going on a 6m/10k training run. How much running will actually happen I'm not sure but I plan to get around it all, and get miles in my legs.

I get nervous when entering races where club participation is part of the race. I put too much pressure on myself to feel that I have to be up with the stronger runners. I know that I don't have to be.

And I have 63 weeks left to do 35 events.

Training

Tonight was a training run with running club.

I had put myself forward to lead a 5k slow run in case any beginners wanted to join in, no one took me up on this. So I joined the 5 mile group instead. Now, I had no intention of doing further than 3 miles tonight, having just had some rest time after hurting my knee at the end of last month.

Suffice to say, I ran about 4-4.5 miles of the 5 miles (I can't run it all just yet). No knee pain, which clearly I had been concerned about.

And I think I'm changing allegiances with my running watches. Earlier in the year I had purchased a Tomtom multi sport watch which meant I could swim, bike and run wearing it. It does what I want it to do.. I'm loving it particularly more as it's much slimmer and less bulky than my Garmin 610 (even the FR 10), and much more comfortable le to wear.

Overall I was really happy with tonight. I would have preferred to have stayed under my blanket I am currently crocheting, but as I said I would lead a group I had to go really. Admittedly, at one point during the run I nearly contemplated turning back. I didn't think I would be able to do all 5 miles. But as I had reached mile 2 by this point, I thought that I might as well keep going!!! 

I'm still battling negative thoughts of low confidence and it takes a lot to actually put myself in a group where I definitely feel that I am not as up to speed as the other runners. Hence, why I have avoided this in the past. But if I want to run the Southampton Half marathon next April then I need to get the legwork going and perhaps have a little more confidence in myself.

As a result of having a couple weeks rest, this has impacted on my #fortyb4forty challenge slightly, but not horrendously so. Hopefully I can catch up with some parkruns very soon.

Lessons to be learnt

So, tonight I went back to running club after a couple of weeks off running to give my knee a rest after experiencing a lot of pain at great South run, and in training in the week following.

I have joined a running programme at running club to run a half marathon in less than 2 hours. This really could be a big challenge for me. I came into the programme later than the other participants, and am definitely less fitter than most of the other participants too.

Anyhow, I managed 3 x 800m internals with a one minute rest between each 800m. Thursday is supposedly a 6 mile run. I confess, I'm somewhat nervous as to whether I will realistically manage it.

Anyhow, tonight I went back to wearing my brooks trainers and had no knee pain or even slight discomfort. Lesson is don't change your trainers if what you have is working for you!!!!!

No news on the PSPA article as yet.

Journalism

I was contacted recently from the PSPA. I was asked whether they could talk to me about my fundraising challenge for an article for their newsletter. Me, little ol' me? Of course!!

So, having had a lovely chat and a few hours alter a draft article has been emailed to me, and I return it with a photo to include. 

So what did I say in the article? Well, you're just going to have wait and see!!