My medal arrived for my September challenge - and it’s a beauty! A bit of “bling” always helps as a motivation booster, and as a result at least in part of this one arriving I have now signed up for two further challenges - the first is the “Virtual Vitality London 10k” Which I will need to run at some stage next week, and the second is a little further off and will be a run & walk challenge again as it’s to cover 214 miles in 7 weeks at the start of next year! In an ideal world I would love to head into London for the 10k - and indeed I’m still considering a drive in to park in the area close to my office, need to think of a suitable 10k route mind you. It would feel more “right” to run it within a London postcode, at least, though.
Other than that, the consistency of 3 runs a week continues. I have just done run 2 of this week - in the pouring rain, no less - as I write (several hours ahead of hitting publish!) I’m curled up on the sofa in a huge cosy hoody and snuggly socks, slowly drying/thawing out. and feeling notably disinclined to venture outside again probably for the remainder of the day! While I joke about it, actually knuckling down to run in the rain is a big thing for me - I REALLY dislike it. Aside from the general unpleasantness of it, I run in glasses, and have to cross at least some roads on pretty much any route I choose, simply because of the environment I have to run in, and rain splattered glasses + traffic = serious risk of getting run over. Add in this time of year, and I have the added issue of them steaming up when it’s wet too - meaning even less vision - not great! I also loathe the fact that running in the rain means that my thick naturally curly hair instantly launches itself into the kind of tangles that take ages and a lot of ouches to remove. Ugh! Today there was the added barrier of having had a really tough, low-energy run on Monday, and knowing that today was going to be more of the same - which makes it seriously tough to motivate yourself to go and do it, but it is of course going and “doing it anyway” that means that next week, when my current state of low energy passes on, I will hopefully reap the benefit of some far more enjoyable runs!
I’ve also invested in a “balance cushion” recently - basically a flat round pvc cushion that you inflate to around 50% full of air which makes it devilishly tough to balance on. Great for improving core stability though, so I’m trying to work in a couple of 15 minute sessions per week using that, as well as a couple of weights sessions as well for more general strength work. The full Strava subscription is helping too with the motivation to do stuff like this now as I can input workouts of this type manually and they all feed back into my profile to show me how I’m doing building fitness over time - a surprising help at points like this where otherwise I could feel well and truly disheartened. Being able to see the progress in the form of graphs and charts makes a big difference.
All being well I should hit my October monthly running distance target, a modest 50 miles, early next week, and that will also hopefully see me caught up on my annual mileage challenge too - leaving that very achievable indeed, barring disasters. This feels like a real turnaround from 6 weeks ago when I committed to getting the consistency back, and really does go to show that you can make quite a substantial distance in a relatively short period of time. Onwards!
Robyn
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