RHM Blog: Day 20

Friday 30 January

I was expecting to wake up sore and stiff after the previous 48 hours exertions but was pleasantly surprised that I felt mildly bothered by it and I was more than eager to get up and walk first thing.

I relish my morning walk, it’s almost exactly 2 miles, takes me about 35 minutes and I plug myself in and listen to my audio books. These aren’t fictional books, they’re usually self-improvement listens. And I love them.

I thought I was someone who learned well from reading until I discovered audio-books, these have now become my noise of choice when I am walking, driving or ironing. I listen to the same book tens of times as there is always something I miss the first few times and then, for no reason other than I am filled-up with that book, I can be ready to listen to a new one for the next few weeks.

This morning it was brisk and quiet and, for the first time in a while, showing the early signs of daylight rather than night.

Today was a rest day from running but whilst I was walking I was contemplating this challenge and what I needed to do to make it more enjoyable and more rewarding.

I’ve decided that ‘just getting round’ isn’t enough for me and I do want to see what I am capable of in the time we have. I know that it’s 17 years since I ran a half marathon, I know that I only started running properly again 3 weeks ago and I know that I need to change the picture of the outcome for me to get a better result.

So with this knowledge I started thinking about how Karen said I needed to change my running style. She was very polite and said I ran ‘upright’ and ‘elegant’ but then she dropped in the words ‘trotting like a horse’ and the visual image was clear!

So I am going to work on improving that. Smaller steps, leaning into the run more and pushing back off my feet a bit more quickly.

I’ve also started to visualise the next training run I need to do before I do it. So tomorrow I am going to do some hill training. I’ve not done any yet and I am behind, so I lay in bed and visualised me charging up and jogging down the motorway bridge in Winnersh like I was supercharged and energised. Let’s see how that goes tomorrow!

I also need to address my appetite too. When I exercise more intensely my appetite dwindles and I eat less. Not a good combination and one I need to work on. I am very keen to train and run on a high fat, low carb regime as that suits me best. So watch this space 🙂