I recently took some advice from a colleague who persuaded me to start very slowly and not get out of breath too soon because that makes you feel awful for the rest of the run. So that's what I did - and I kept up the slow pace for the rest of the run, but that's by-the-by...
I do feel heavy - overweight and burdened with a little depression, with the thought of my life stretching out ahead with no change in the levels of stress I feel... Again, that's something in my power to change. But leaving the comfort of a secure job basically adds to the levels of 'hell, no' I live with.
Anyway - I am upping my blogging game and hopefully making it a bit more readable, informative and entertaining and so on. There are links galore, photos* and confessions - an irresistible combination, right.
5.7 miles
10m 06s
Fastest mile 9m 50s
So I'm happy about that. Not that it takes much...
*I am an idiot - I wanted to take a photo of a lane on the downs which I love - it's flat, straight, lined by trees - but lovely. So I thought I'd be all clever and do this - I ended up with a 3-frame video. Not so clever am I now? Oh well.
Setting off with the intention of being slow worked so well: I was concerned about a niggly achilles which seemed to be permanent but by the end, it had calmed down. The other one was getting twingy though. And my left hip did its thing as well... Age, it's a bugger. In my darkest days, I would have taken the alternative; I'm glad to say I don't feel that way any more.
I have to thank Malcolm Balk for getting me into this style of running – or at least for getting me away from heel-striking. I know following my embracing of his technique I did have 2 stress fractures but I’m prepared to believe they were because I bought the wrong shoes and not building up any kind of strength. I learned my lesson… But I did remember his teachings when I was annoyed about running so slowly – and the way to speed up is to lean forward from the hips and your body will compensate by running faster to stop you falling over. So simple. I need stronger hamstrings though. Well, I need to make sure I keep going to the gym in general, for many reasons and not just for running.
Talking of age – which is one of the themes of this thing as it’s my greatest concern these days – fighting it, accepting it, enjoying it. (The ‘enjoying’ it is beyond me so far)
I have a very common issue, which I share with a great many female runners of all ages and that’s the charm-free stress incontinence oh joy… It’s common, it’s not a worrying thing – but ffs it would be far nicer not to have anything else to worry about. Thankfully I only ever get this while running and it’s not something that’s particularly obvious – but it feel like there’s something catastrophic happening in my pants.
Other age-related things – the Mail Online (which I know is basically click bait for the stupid (I read it a lot...)) had cures for things which no one worries about
1. the burden of back fat fat – at last there are exercises to get rid of it. Which work really well along as long as you lose weight
2. the magic pill for weight loss is finally here. It helps you're your appetite which is something which gets harder as you age. So it’s not a magic weight-loss pill, you have to do some weight-loss work yourself.
I was listening to random songs on my phone this morning – there are loads of tracks, most of which have been following me around for years – I rarely download anything these days; I listen to spotify but only on wifi so out on the road I rely on downloaded plays and so on. Anyway – there I was shuffling away and the Foo Fighters came on - long road to ruin – and it reminded me a. it was the inspiration for the name of this blog and b. it was from a long time ago. 2009 in fact (which in itself is 3 years after my ½ marathon) 
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