So close to a DNF

I'm on holiday! Not that I feel rested. I was up till late last night reading Harry, woke up at the normal time, then loitered around the house until finally reaching the last page at around 2.30. We woke to a beautiful sunny day here in Morningtonand I opened up the curtains in the lounge and bedroom to let the sun stream in. It even got to around 13 degrees in the hallway! Unfortunately the warmth dissipated as soon as the sun moved Westwards and away from us.

Living in Wellington is such a compromise. If you have sun you probably have wind. If you're sheltered you probably have bad access. In our case we have no off-street parking, 46 steps and a couple of paths, gorgeous views and sun from the East. We're quiet and private and we have great neighbours. We're sheltered from the Northerlies and we get hit by the Southerlies. This house is lovely and airy in summer when we can sleep on calm nights with the big sash windows in the bedroom open onto the veranda, leaving the curtains open to the view. However the windows rattle in the slightest breeze, the sun never reaches the courtyard behind the house in winter, and without the central heating going it's cold!

Still, there's nothing like lying about in the courtyard in the middle of summer with a cold bottle of cider, or curling up in a hammock chair on the veranda communing with the mountains. Despite all my whinging of late, I really do love this place.

Anyway, this was to be a post about running, sort of. Remember the last Squad, when every run was golden and I felt glad to be doing this? When each step heralded new speed? When I owned my spot at the front of the pack? Yeah, I need to remember those days!

My runs lately have been OK, but they haven't been fabulous. I feel like I've dropped off the speed. I know I've had the abductor problem, but there's something just not there right now. Tonight we ran for 40 minutes around the Bays. It was a cool evening, but calm. I started off ok, slowed a little but not too seriously after around 15 minutes, made it to the 20 minute turnaround ok, and like a slow-motion special effects shot of a fatal car crash, my mind sat back and watched it all turn Pete Tong.

It was a struggle to make it back to Fisherman's Table, though I managed the 15 full press-ups ok. I had to crawl to Freyberg, though the 15 walking lunges didn't feel too bad either. However the aforementioned custard started to go cold and lumpy after that. I don't even want to think how much my speed dropped off as I shuffled my way back to the gym. I even walked from Te Papa. I NEVER walk from Te Papa.

Objectively it wasn't that much of a disaster. I made it a little further than usual, but nowhere near as far as Greta Point, where Karen and the front pack ran to (I mean, come on, how could I ever keep up with THAT?). My splits weren't that bad, even with the stopping for press-ups and lunges. I even had one of the new Squaddies admiring my running technique and commenting that I must have been running for a while. Um, thanks, and now feel free to kick my butt for the rest of the run!

Reasons why this was a less-than-successful run:

• nearly 50 minutes of reasonably paced running on Saturday followed by RPM, then 20 minutes on the treadmill on Sunday (up to 11.5kmph) and a Balance with a very hard standing strength track. Plus I walked into town - which took around an hour. Gee Sherlock, your legs weren't exactly fresh, were they?? Particularly when this is the first week you've really run on several consecutive days, because ...
• you're still coming back from an injury. Deal with it!
• you were probably dehydrated, because you haven't had a lot of water today (it's harder to remember to suck on the Pump bottle when you're not at your desk),
• admit it - you ate crap yesterday, and your stomach was reminding you of that this morning,
• lying around all morning does not make for an easy transition to evening activity.
• you're a bit stressed right now, and come to think of it ...
  
• you have a bit of an infection at the moment.
  

All that, and you know you totally set yourself up for a bad one! And don't you think you've over-analysed things just a teensy bit?

And when did this blog post shift to third person?

Good things that happened today: I had an excellent performance review, and Emma (hi Emma) googled Jog Squad, discovered my blog and has invited me to her Buddhist study group tomorrow night. The universe is tapping me on the shoulder again it would seem...

Hi and thanks to the Blog community members who have commented lately, and who have added me to their Blog Rolls. One of my goals for this week, before I go back to work on Monday, is to my own list up. In fact, if it's wet tomorrow, that may be my main activity (after a 40 minute rolling hill run to the Terrace and Mike's Balance class).

Onwards...