Good news, bad news

Good news -  I ran more than 5 miles this morning...
5.18 miles at 9m35s a mile. Happy with those numbers

Bad news - I have hurt my foot. I feel it might be serious in the sense that it could stop me running in the future. I have hallux rigidus in my right big toe joint. It's painful - very painful - at times but until now it hasn't affected my running.
I think there is a combination of factors here - one is the big toe joint not working well. This forces me to run a little on the side of my right foot which obviously puts a strain on other bones and joints. Not good. Also my shoes are a bit rubbish - they have lost their grip (I can believe it's the way I'm running which makes my feet slip on the road...) also I have quite sweaty feet these days and with no socks on my feet are sliding around a bit. I guess when I feel brave enough to run again I'll try socks and see if that solves the problem (s)

I feel very unhappy about this. If it is enough to stop me running I will feel crap. I live with runners and they are gleeful about running further, faster, more heroically and I feel really pissed off with them. I am never going to be in their league obviously but if I can't even keep going for myself then it's going to take a lot of adjustment on my part.
I am angry.

A first

This morning I broke all expectations and went to the gym - then went for a run.
It makes perfect sense of course - while I'm off work for a while, I need to keep up with the fitness - and actually spend more time on getting fitter. So I cycles up to the top of blackboy hill and my lovely gym, then ran round the downs and cycled home. And it wasn't as awful as I thought it might have been...  It was hard work and I had to walk up the cross-country section, but apart from that - this is how it panned out:

4.63 miles in 44m29s
which is a less than impressive 9min 35secs a mile.

Good enough for an overweight middle-aged trout?

Get me!

I have just run at lunchtime at work. Blooming amazing.

It took 70 mins from desk to desk which is ok - there is no excuse not to make it a regular thing, frankly.

Stats: well, the first one which came up in the headphones was for a 9'07" mile which reflects the fact it's pretty flat at the start. But I did the cross country bit and the hill just defeated me: I actually had to walk for a while.
So overall I did 3.02 miles at 9'28" a mile - so not too shabby really.
And I'm just really pleased that I made the effort - OK it's alovely day and I'm sure if it was raining I would not have gone. And it is such a kerfuffle getting changed, cycling up there, running, shower remembering keys - headphones - phone etc etc - but I expect it's done me a power of good.

What have I done?

It's kind of the opposite of unleashing a monster - I've tamed a placid lamb...

Running yesterday in the beautiful clear crisp morning sunshine was the nearest it gets to being a pleasure. (Note to self - I need a different route: even though the daffs are coming out I feel I have done that run so many times...)

Stats, though, don't make for happy reading
4.3 miles
9min 47 a mile

9 mins 47 seconds to run a mile - quite the slowest I've been for a while.
Excuses: the day before we'd spent in London walking. Walking for miles and miles. In shoes with paper-thin soles (shoes are now in recyling - much as I like them they've had their chips) So my feet were none too great and my feet are my achiles heel (you see what I did there...)

I am definitely going slower and slower. At this rate the 10k will take me... (pause to calculate...) over an hour. That's poor. Last time I did it was under 56 mins. surely I can aim to go that fast this time?
Or is it the taking part, the fact I'm a fatty old bird doing it, enough?

I don't know.

I do know I hate this ageing thing cos everything you thought of as being anything like permanent turns out to be anything but...