When Running Gets Hard (Mar 2018)
Why Am I only Running 2 Miles a Week?
I love running. Running is my Happy Hour. I was running across fields a few months ago, enjoying the numerous benefits of off road running with friends. Easily clocking up 20 miles or so each week. But now I’m struggling out of the house and down the road, just 2 miles and then I’m home. As a result, I’m not really feeling the benefits. It’s not enough distance to feel a high, that used to hit me at 5 miles (followed by an energy slump that I’d fuel with jelly babies!). It’s not enough miles to keep my fitness up and it’s not tough enough to get my legs adequately prepared for the upcoming 10K and half marathon that I’ve entered.
I had a cold, then a cough, but I kept on running. Then I had another cold and then tonsillitis, then I ran again. Then tonsillitis again so I rested and took some antibiotics. Then another cold and sinusitis and now, finally, I’m running again. So I told myself, it’ll be OK, I’ll enjoy writing myself a programme to get the miles back up and my fitness back. I will get it back.
I miss the fields, I was out there, outrunning the depression but it was hounding me and in late November I fell into a hole and couldn’t find a way to climb back out. I was mentally lost again but physically the running had been getting tougher, my body just felt heavier, it was like the black dog was strapped to my back when usually he would go bounding off across the fields and through the woods and give me a break from his vast, brooding hulk.
So physical and mental illness have come hand in hand, skipping towards me like the kiddy catcher, full of sinister promises and I have been caught. What I need is to be running across those fields but I can’t. I can barely get out of bed some days. I have my run day, a Tuesday. I get up, put on my favourite gear, those black leggings and breathable Ts and my runners and I go out, for 20 minutes. I’m looking for any sign of improvement; a quicker section, a faster pace, a lower heart-rate or just a little of the euphoria that I used to feel at feeling my own strength carry me to distant sights.
I usually love running in the Winter, the ground crunching then giving way under your feet and snowflakes in your eyelashes, but maybe this year we need to start to see Spring for me to feel that spring in my step again.
