Getting back into the swing of it

I've not run since last Monday when I went out with the CaniX group and had a wonderful 5k 'sprint'. At the time I thought how great it was that I'd not lost much form despite 2 weeks off due to my tonsillitis hell. Stupid me didn't take into account that I was being pulled by a large Malamute and my own dog Nethy!! D'uh!

Last night I was out with the group again and this time I had no Malamute to haul my sorry ass around the course, and Nethy was obviously feeling tired so she wasn't pulling at all. This made me feel like I was running with lead in my shoes! I managed to get round in 30 minutes which included poo stop (Nethy not me) and getting lost for a few minutes so not too bad given it's an off road course with a hill in it.

I decided I'd get out again tonight as I'll be at bmx club tomorrow with Ruby and road bike training on Thursday, but the gale force winds were really putting me off. Luckily Matt came up with a great idea - to drive me to Longniddry and let me run the 5 miles home with a tail wind!

It was a really lovely night (apart from the wind) but the first 3 miles of the run were HELL! It's slightly uphill and despite the tail wind I was totally struggling. I felt like I'd never run before and I just felt wrong! Thankfully at mile 3 the trail starts to head downhill and at that point everything changed. My pace increase and I started to really enjoy myself. My form came back, my legs eased off, even the tension in my upper body disappeared. By the time I arrived back in the town I was flying and we even managed to sprint the last 100 yards back to the house!

For me the joy of running is about how it makes me feel mentally as well as physically. I've had some really low days over the past few weeks while I've been recovering from my virus and I know that's mainy because I haven't been getting my endorphin rush. I'm hoping this will be the start of my recovery and that I'll be back to doing my regular runs over the next few weeks.

I think I'll also take this opportunity to shake things up a bit and to start doing intervals and hill training again. My longer slow runs are great and I'll still do as many of them as I can but to be honest I would like to be faster, and I certainly think my body would benefit from some short fast runs. We'll see how that pans out...

Don't want to close this blog entry without mentioning the horrific events in Boston. It's been weighing heavily on my mind today, and was especially in my thoughts while I was out on my run. My heart goes out to all the people affected x