Yesterday Trevor wrote a blog post about his amazing second half-marathon distance run and called it “A magical start to the day…”
And it got me thinking about how my run’s go. Now they are longer, averaging about 30 minutes+.
I run first thing in the morning. After the little one’s awake and before I start work, have a coffee, breakfast etc. I do it to clear my head. Even if I didn’t run, I would still go out every day. It doesn’t matter if it’s raining. I actually enjoy being out in the rain.
I think about all sorts as you can imagine. Usually trying to order thoughts in my head that then lead to a blog post or some shift in my thinking. I am also very much engaged in trying to convince myself that the running is not as painful as it is. “This is far easier than you were expecting” is a common thought I have, for example.
On a nice day I have a lovely view and enjoy the bunnies running across my path, the deer in the fields and the birds of prey hovering over a hedge.
On the flip side, I am avoiding running in the horse manure because there are a number of horses that ride the path every day. I am avoiding standing in dog dirt because the people who walk their dogs on the path don’t pick it up. I am also avoiding the black slugs and trying not to swallow too many flies (average is 3-4!). If it’s been raining, I am avoiding slipping in the muddy puddles. If it is dry I am avoiding twisting my ankles on the dents left by the horseshoe prints.
Not as pleasant and magical as Trevor describes in his post!
At the end of the run, I am trying to convince myself that it’s better and easier to keep running than to stop and walk instead. I am trying to better my times as a way of motivating myself. I no longer care about the dirt on the path or the smell of the honeysuckle or how many flies I have eaten! I usually pass a guy walking his huge dog on the last 0.5 mile and then I am gathering enough breath to say ‘morning’ and making sure I don’t stop running because that will ‘look bad’.
Well yesterday’s run was interesting. As I ran out of the end of the road, a beaten up old white van raced up the road, spewing out fumes from its exhaust. I ran along the path which crosses over the road again after 0.7 miles (you can tell I do this a lot!)
There is a car park area where the path is split by the road and by the time I reached it, the white van was now parked up. I glanced at it and was a little worried as my imagination began to kick in. “It’s ok” I thought “I can run!”
As I passed the van, a door opened and I glanced back to see a youngish guy standing outside of it. I sped up!
I had already decided it would be a 5k run day anyway and that meant I needed to continue running for at least another mile before I turned around and returned. Decision made. I ran on in the hope that the van would be gone on my return. For the rest of the run, I was engaged in what I call “situation thinking”, running through a whole bunch of ‘what if’ scenario’s in my head.
The good thing is that this was a wonderful distraction from the normal huff and puff of my running. Even better was my relief when the van wasn’t there on my return about 20 minutes later.
So that’s a little insight into my daily routine.
Having a run in the morning sets me up wonderfully for the day. It gives me loads of energy (which is the opposite of what I would expect) and stops that mid-afternoon slump that used to be such a killer.
