Training: a very short round-up

THREE weeks ago, I ran a gentle 5K in advance of the Allendale Challenge. Today, I finally got out for another 5K. For me, that's a long, long time between runs. Part of it is injury from the walk, but a large part is also down to morale. 

I don't want this blog to turn into a never-ending diary of misery — which won't be much fun to read back in years to come — but equally I don't want to gloss over how I'm feeling, with forced positivity.

So yeah, I'm a bit down in the dumps. Prior to the Allendale Challenge, I was properly excited, confident I could tackle the walk without the impediment of skinned heels and ruined toenails. I actually thought I stood a good chance of beating my time from 2010. To fall so far short and to find that it was my body (not my fitness) that let me down was really depressing. It's made me question whether I should really be continuing with such a high impact form of exercise at all. Maybe cycling or swimming would be better for me. I'm just really disappointed that my various joints seem to wave the white flag at very little provocation at all. To be limited by that is super frustrating when I know my cardio fitness is well up to the job. 😞

It may be that getting back into a rhythm with the running will brighten my outlook, however, so I'll try to focus on that in the coming weeks and months. The fact that I no longer feel like trying to get faster (as measured at parkruns) hangs over me a little like a dark cloud or resignation, but I know that I didn't enjoy the running when I really went for a fast time. So perhaps I need to redefine my motivation and long term goals. And maybe that will make me happier with my ...achievements. Maybe that will change my annual goals too. We'll see.

BUT... I've got a post to write about my recent runs first. Let's get back to that.

Today I fancied heading back to the Byker Link: the disused railway line heading up to the Byker Wall from St Peter's Basin. It was just the sense of greenery that you get that I was looking for. But today, I opted to mix it up and run up the Link for once rather than down it. And to get there, I opted to run from top to bottom of the Ouseburn, from Ernest down past the Tyne Bar and then along the quayside past the Cycle Hub. That afforded a little extra greenery, even if it was short-lived. 

Another thing that was thankfully short-lived was a pretty painful hail shower that kicked in after 5 or 6 minutes and lasted another 4 minutes. Man, that hurt! Forehead and ears in particular took some truly stinging hits and I found myself wishing I'd put my cap on.

By the time I'd made it to the bottom end of the Byker Link, the rain and hail had stopped and the sun was out again, gradually drying me though I was still pretty soggy by the time I got back to work. Doing the Link uphill wasn't as hard as I'd expected; the early bit and the very end had the steepest climbs, but with it being the route of a railway, neither was particularly steep. 

The remainder of the run was unmemorable, heading over Byker Bridge before continuing along New Bridge Street and over the central motorway. I actually quit early in the end, as I could feel my hip issues returning (that had been an issue on the Allendale) and then my left knee protested. Given I was only a couple of hundred metres from home, it felt reasonable to just avoid worsening things.

Next outing should be a parkrun on Saturday, meeting up with a few folk from work, though I'm not sure how many will be running vs how many will be on the coffee and cake trail. Me, I'll be doing both. 😁

Oh! I completely forgot to round up and just wrote about today. Well, last Wednesday, I also did a lunchtime run, but got less than 3.5km in before I got a call that saw me heading home from the office. So... maybe it's fair that I didn't give it much airtime. It underlines how little I've been running, but I'll be happy to put that behind me.