"It's all gone quiet" said Rhubarb. "Too quiet" said Custard.
Three months have gone by since my last blog post and it feels like it might be almost that long since I went for a run. I've dragged myself round cross country courses at Winsford, Stafford Common and Leek without too much enthusiasm, completed a few more parkruns, and been out with my running club much less frequently than usual. It's been a struggle - a combination of work trips, ill health and apathy have seen my trainers abandoned in the hall way and achieving my mileage target for 2014 looking less and less likely.
Is this the end? Have I actually lost my running mojo? I wrote a post on the Potters Trotters blog trying to motivate myself as well as my club mates. I concluded the post by deciding I need to get back back to my running roots: I'm not sure I've quite found the answer yet for getting my mojo back.... But I'm sure that it will come back and I'm hoping it will be in the company of the pink ladies from Potters Trotters. That was where I learnt to enjoy running in the first place.
So over the last few weeks, I've been taking steps to get back on track. I've been running as often as possible of late with my running friends from Potters Trotters - I donned my Christmas pudding outfit and returned to the scene of my first proper race, the Christmas Pudding Run at Cheddleton. I completed the run alongside my club mate Liz and we aimed to enjoy ourselves. We did. We worked hard but we focused on being happy we were running. We repeated the trick a week or so later, taking on the Dales Dash around Apedale. It was fun. We survived. We said thank you to the marshals and spectators who cheered us on. We paused to admire the view. We didn't look at our watches (too often) and I couldn't tell you any statistics about the run at all, not even our finishing time. In the hunt for my mojo, my own finishing time seems to have lost its importance.
I've been to the club as often as work has permitted and enjoyed creating running routes to take in the Christmas sights of Abbey Hulton, Baddeley Green, Milton and Birches Head. My highlight was probably our Christmas run - the fancy dress was in use again as we ran as a group and posed for photos by over-decorated houses. We even sang a few Christmas Carols. And we tried a speedwork session for the first time in months just a couple of days later. It was hard but it felt good to push ourselves just a bit harder than we have been recently. Thanks to the wonder of Strava, I also know that I managed to run the top loop of the Hanley parkrun course faster than in months when I went for a training run last week.
Slowly, very slowly, I feel like I'm enjoying running again and perhaps ready to set myself some new challenges for the year ahead. They are certainly going to be some differences in the first few months of 2015, as Mr T and I set off our little adventure down under. My first parkrun of 2015 as a runner is hopefully going to be in Rockingham in Western Australia. I think the sun might help!
Hopefully, I won't be this quiet again in 2015 - look out for some running and travel stories via the blog.
Happy running
Liz T.
Three months have gone by since my last blog post and it feels like it might be almost that long since I went for a run. I've dragged myself round cross country courses at Winsford, Stafford Common and Leek without too much enthusiasm, completed a few more parkruns, and been out with my running club much less frequently than usual. It's been a struggle - a combination of work trips, ill health and apathy have seen my trainers abandoned in the hall way and achieving my mileage target for 2014 looking less and less likely.
Is this the end? Have I actually lost my running mojo? I wrote a post on the Potters Trotters blog trying to motivate myself as well as my club mates. I concluded the post by deciding I need to get back back to my running roots: I'm not sure I've quite found the answer yet for getting my mojo back.... But I'm sure that it will come back and I'm hoping it will be in the company of the pink ladies from Potters Trotters. That was where I learnt to enjoy running in the first place.
So over the last few weeks, I've been taking steps to get back on track. I've been running as often as possible of late with my running friends from Potters Trotters - I donned my Christmas pudding outfit and returned to the scene of my first proper race, the Christmas Pudding Run at Cheddleton. I completed the run alongside my club mate Liz and we aimed to enjoy ourselves. We did. We worked hard but we focused on being happy we were running. We repeated the trick a week or so later, taking on the Dales Dash around Apedale. It was fun. We survived. We said thank you to the marshals and spectators who cheered us on. We paused to admire the view. We didn't look at our watches (too often) and I couldn't tell you any statistics about the run at all, not even our finishing time. In the hunt for my mojo, my own finishing time seems to have lost its importance.
I've been to the club as often as work has permitted and enjoyed creating running routes to take in the Christmas sights of Abbey Hulton, Baddeley Green, Milton and Birches Head. My highlight was probably our Christmas run - the fancy dress was in use again as we ran as a group and posed for photos by over-decorated houses. We even sang a few Christmas Carols. And we tried a speedwork session for the first time in months just a couple of days later. It was hard but it felt good to push ourselves just a bit harder than we have been recently. Thanks to the wonder of Strava, I also know that I managed to run the top loop of the Hanley parkrun course faster than in months when I went for a training run last week.
Slowly, very slowly, I feel like I'm enjoying running again and perhaps ready to set myself some new challenges for the year ahead. They are certainly going to be some differences in the first few months of 2015, as Mr T and I set off our little adventure down under. My first parkrun of 2015 as a runner is hopefully going to be in Rockingham in Western Australia. I think the sun might help!
Hopefully, I won't be this quiet again in 2015 - look out for some running and travel stories via the blog.
Happy running
Liz T.
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