Inspiring Myself To Run When I Didn’t Want To Run On A Cold Winter’s Night

I was close to writing today off as a bad day.

It was just one of those days you have every so often where you have no energy, no inspiration and seemingly little to no control over what is happening.

Serious injury fears

Yesterday wasn’t great either. I spent the majority of the day limping around the house after having a deep pain in the centre of my back.

I think I put a little too much into the 18.1 miler on Monday.

It had been a while since I’d completed a run that had over 300 metres of elevation gain. Monday’s long run consisted of a total gain of 380m over 18 miles.

On the downhill section of the run I thought I was gonna have to stop. I honestly thought it was just trapped wind at the time, but the discomfort grew in intensity the more I slowed down.

I made it home and the pain only seemed to surface whenever I was moving up stairs.

As per usual when I got home I Googled for possible diagnoses and suspected I either had back Cancer or a slipped disc.

This contributed a lot to my general depressive state over the past 2 days.

I woke up this morning and most of the pain was gone.

At 3am in the morning I was jogging and hopping around my room to test to see if the pain was still there or not.

Fortunately there was no sign of it at all.

To run or not to run?

So as I said earlier, I wasn’t gonna go out at all today.

But you know what? I’m not prepared to settle on having a bad day anymore.

I’m not prepared to settle on having an average day either. It just won’t do.

In order for my luck to change and to catch a break, I need to be ready for it. I can’t sit around here feeling sorry for myself. It doesn’t solve any problems.

So you know what I did? I made myself furious.

I sat and watched this clip on Youtube for 4 minutes and whipped myself into a frenzy of hate and spit.

If you aren’t from the UK or Ireland, this is what we call a tool on these shores.

I can’t even remember from what commercial the clip originates from. All I know is that I had an allergic reaction to it today.

At first I was incapacitated with rage and smashed my head into my desk.

That’s not healthy.

I calmed down a little and changed into my running kit.

I conned myself into just going out the door with zero expectations. My goal was to pretend that every inch of road I covered was “Wonga” man’s fat  head and to trample his awful head in.

Stamp, stomp, stamp, stomp.

Yes.

The run was excellent.

I tramped his head in good. Real good. So good that his head would be a paste by now that I could spread thickly onto a sandwich and force-feed to his grieving mother.

I enjoyed every single minute of it. I wanted to cover a 10k at least and stayed out instead for 11.3 miles with an average pace of 9:31 minute/mile. Not a bad speed at all for the distance and I was constantly getting faster mile on mile.

There was no sign of back pain either. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this strong on a run.

So what’s the morale of the story here? I don’t think there is one other than you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to inspire yourself.

I can safely report that today has now been a good day and I’m having a Onken Strawberry Biopot to celebrate.

I’m eating it like this too. Tasty treats.

It nearly ended in disaster too right at the end of the run. I was thinking back to Wonga man again and tried to put one last surge of speed into my legs to record a sub 8 minute last mile.

I ended up tripping up over my own feet and nearly went down on my face.

That would have been embarrassing. Wonga man would’ve won.

I didn’t fall and that’s the important thing.

Running For Weight Loss – 1lb Lost In Week 2 Of Ultramarathon Training

So I’m now down to 209.7lbs from last week’s 210.7lbs. I’m a little disappointed about the loss in terms of numbers but I can see a positive change in how my clothes are fitting my body.

Apologies for the poor quality of picture. I made a conscious effort this week to cover the ‘Hello Kitty!’ chair that most of you were bitching about in last week’s shot (it’s my nieces chair!)

The good from this week

  1. I’ve been eating healthier – I haven’t had any cheese in a week (unless you count cottage cheese which clearly isn’t a real cheese). I’m focusing mostly on crisp bread, cereals, low fat Onken yoghurt and pasta.
  2. My running stamina is improving and my confidence has improved because of that – I’ve only ran 3 times this week so far but I’ve covered 40 miles in those runs. An 18 miler plus 2×11.3 milers. I’m gonna go out tomorrow and run at least 15 miles so that I beat last week’s mileage total of 55 miles. I will do this. I don’t care about pace. I’m staying out for as long as I can.
  3. I’m comfortably taking on hills at the moment – In the 18 miler I ran up over 350m of elevation gain which is a new record for me. I took them on fearlessly and relaxed into them which is the best thing you can do to make hill running easier for yourself. Once you start panicking on the climb then it’s too easy to lose your breathing and your rhythm.

    I ran around the war memorial on Monday evening without a problem. 

  4. My nipples are no longer an issue – I’m wearing the same running clothes outside but I’m not experiencing anything near the levels of chaffing I encountered over Christmas. This is great and makes showering that much easier (no more screaming like I’m Janet Leigh in Psycho)
  5. For the first time I’m starting to believe that I can finish the 100k – That’s why it’s important to keep moving forward with my fitness and the weight loss. I can’t let things slow down and grow complacent. I’m meant to be doing all of this full time.  I’ve no excuses.

The bad from this week

  1. My sleep is even worse than ever – On Friday I went to bed at 11am and woke up at 5pm. The sleep cycle is really stressing me out and I’m thinking of speaking to the doctor about it.
  2. I’ve probably been eating too much cereal – I counted 4 bowls of Frosted Shreddies in 2 hours on Thursday evening. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to ‘carb load’ for runs when ultimately I’m just pigging out. I understand that it’s counterproductive and I’m trying to cut it out.
  3. I don’t feel well today – I had a bottle of Wine last night and some pizza and my system seems to be in shock. I don’t understand how I’ve become such a lightweight in such a short period of time. Anyway I’m not drinking tonight but I am having a pot of Ben and Jerry’s Vermonster. I’m totally exhausted and having real trouble writing this post.
  4. I experienced back pain after the Monday run – It was centred in my lower back and on Tuesday I could barely walk because of it. Weirdly enough I ran on Wednesday and Thursday without a problem. I’m hoping it isn’t something that will continue to rear it’s head. I can’t afford to be injured.