Since when ...

Is a cold considered to be a suitable going away present?

I have a sore throat. I'm trying to pretend it's not there, but unfortunately I don't think it's going to let me ignore it.

It's been an odd week. RPM on Tuesday night, boxing training on Wednesday morning then a solitary 7km run around the waterfront on Wednesday night. On Thursday Duck made me do more pushups than I could count, adding in a few pull-ups and various other pain-inducing exercises. At one point I told her I hated her, and it's been a while since I've felt inclined to do that. So that was it - almost the end of the Duck era. We agreed we didn't want to get emotional, we agreed I was in a good place, then I got teary out of nowhere and we both took off.

This morning was spent with a bowl of porridge, a dozen personal trainers and Duck again - the final goodbye! When I wasn't looking the small handful of other clients who had turned up disappeared. So I gave Ms PT a hug then disappeared as well, apparently taking a cold bug with me.

I've been a bit off in general all week. It's not often these days that my mood hikes downwards, but something just hasn't been right. Call it winter, call it whatever. I went out for a run at lunchtime feeling strangely sad and oddly angry at something I couldn't isolate. It was rather cold and the wind was particularly frigid and I expected to be feeling fatigued. I pushed my way up to Kelburn and disappeared from the conscious realm for long minutes at a time. Every now and then I would resurface, unable to remember what I'd been thinking, for just long enough to note that I was still running steadily, then I would just kind of waft off again. As I ran through Kelburn I found myself running faster and faster, some unbidden energy pushing me forwards. I turned the wrong way again in the Botanical Gardens and began to turn randomly down new paths. Every time I hit a hill I used my anger to surge up it. There weren't many people out in the cold, but every now and then someone would stop and move to the side for me to pass.

It was about halfway through my angry hill-training that my general sense of dislocation started to right itself. Still outside of myself I had a sudden glimpse of a woman running at pace up hills, mid-way through a challenging run and still holding her own. The me of two and a half years ago did not recognise the now me as herself. For a few seconds I got to see myself the way those strangers who were getting out of my way did. A part of me was graduating from a long course of study. A part of me was coming to the end of one stage of a journey.

I got to the end of that run still not really sure where I'd been or where I'd ended up. I think though that I got a slightly different sense of myself today, and that I also took on responsibility for something. It feels like it was significant.

Either that or it was just my immune system bottoming out!