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Out at 8am for a 14km run, up a few hills and through lots of long wet grass. My socks got wet and my shoes squelched with each step, but we kept up the pace coming home in a little over 87 minutes. I decided to run as me today, rather than Me1 or Me2 who have done all the runs so far. I was worried that the fact that this was my first run would mean I wouldn’t be fit enough to run so far, but if anything I ran a bit quicker than Me1 and Me2, so it just goes to show.
My stamina was good and aside from nearly turning my weak ankle (twisted it badly when I was about 23 and it flares up every now and again) it was an easy and solid run. I felt confident that I could have done another 7km there and then to complete the half marathon distance if I had wanted to, but no need to push it too far too soon.
I am impressed with myself though. If I had accepted the fact that I’ve had cancer this year (which I still am not really buying) then my brain would probably explode. I did not think I would be finding it this comfortable. Though it’s very cool to be doing these long runs with my personal trainer (off the clock, we are training together) as her super fitness pushes me on to be faster and go further than I would otherwise.
Obviously I was a bit knackered for the rest of the day, but couldn’t slack too much. The family went to a lavender farm, which smelled good (if you like the smell of lavender) but was in essence just a big field of lavender. Again I walked through the crops and my trousers got nicely damp. My daughter cleverly elected to go on my shoulders to avoid this. I used up my 1000 bonus calories on some proper junk food.
We then went to buy my son his first bike, which mainly led to arguments about how it wasn’t fair that my daughter wasn’t getting a new bike too (her view) even though she had got one already and Ernie hadn’t got one when she got hers(my view). I remember being the one who thought things weren’t fair whenever I didn’t get everything I wanted back in the olden days (when I was 28 years old). Having kids is the punishment for having been a kid.
Then a quick jaunt round the supermarket, where my boy wanted to dance round the aisles. Touch everything and then swim along the floor. The other shoppers smiled in sympathy and recognition but this relentless energy and refusal to listen and mini tantrums is normal for his age (he is 28 years old) and again I clearly remember my parents’ frustration with me when I did the same 50+ years ago (I was 28 years old). I even recall my three year old (I was actually three) thought process of not wanting to obey the rules and being confused about why adults were so frustrated. And I can see my son’s brain is operating in exactly the same way. I have some sympathy. Although parents are trying to keep you safe, they are also thinking about trying to keep things easier for themselves. I think that’s what I suspected all along.
We bought Homer Simpson style doughnuts and I again broke my diet to eat half a one. And then thought if I was eating half I might as well have a whole one. I quite enjoyed it, which is actually unusual and felt it was worth twenty minutes of running with my shoes full of water to get this. It’s enough of an effort to make me not eat a doughnut too often, but enough of an effort to make me think that I didn’t have to feel bad for eating a doughnut. Plus I like to confuse my metabolism so it has no idea what’s coming next. Stupid metabolism.
My health scare has led me to sorting out my physical fitness, but I now need to get the mental side of things into better order. By which I mainly mean I should get better at organising my creative time and be more efficient with my writing. I think it might be too late to sort out most aspects of my mental health.
