Redbush Runner

Being partially deaf I don't tend to hear the really high-pitched birdsong.  However, the wood pigeons with their 'coo cooo coo cu cu' can always be guaranteed to have me pushing my head under the pillow. Not this morning, however.  By 6.30 a.m. I was running round Scout Dike Reservoir, enjoying the cooler air.  It seems a long time since I ran in anything remotely resembling a breeze.  The weather forecasters are assuring us that by 10 o clock it's going to be baking, so it was a case of now or never. It was beautifully tranquil, a bit too early for the dog walkers but not for the handful of anglers who were already casting their lines.  I'm always reassured by the presence of the anglers somehow.  I wouldn't want to be running anywhere too deserted.  On I ran, past the windmills, the cattle, the geese, over wooden bridges, along the slightly undulating path, ducking the low-hanging branches, dodging the odd stinging nettle, trying not to swallow ...

I've spoken to enough fellow runners to know that there's something in our thought processes along the lines of, "I'm only as good as my last race."  If the last run was a terrible one, we're inclined to fixate on it and forget about all the great ones we had prior to that. It's a ridiculous mindset, but I'm as guilty of it as the next person.  I know that I've come a long way this year.  I've gradually built up my fitness again after a painful thigh injury laid me low from November to early January.  My pace is finally back at the sort of level it was last summer - not blisteringly fast, of course, but quite decent for someone like me who (as my mum constantly reminds me) is "no spring chicken."  What's more, I've even managed to tick off a fairly significant item on my running 'to do' list, completing my first half marathon, which made me very proud. But this weekend it was time to tackle our notoriously hilly lo...

Early this year, my physio gave me the go ahead to start building my running up again after a particularly nasty thigh strain, so that's what I've been doing.  I'm doing the RED 'Run Every Day' January challenge for Mind, so it's a case of little and often.  I'm not usually a huge fan of 'running streaks', because I value my rest days, but RED is certainly helping to keep me motivated, even though sometimes it just involves a 'daily mile' on the treadmill. As I was doing my very rainy 5K today, I found myself pondering the fact that I've been running nearly 18 months now.  In some respects, I think it's fair to say that the honeymoon period is over.  When I first started to run, I really did feel almost like I was at the start of a new love affair.  I woke up excited whenever I was going for a run.  These days it feels more like a marriage.  Don't get me wrong, an enjoyable marriage, but with a few ups and downs, a few mundane m...

People start running for all sorts of reasons.  I don't think mine were typical.  There was no great desire to lose weight or even improve my fitness.  I had been through a bit of a life crisis though, a parting of ways with a friend of many years, something which was sudden, painful and impacted negatively on my self-esteem.  But I pride myself on being adaptable and strongly believe that sometimes the best way to adapt to one kind of change in your life is to make others. So I decided to run.  I had always been a bit in awe of people who ran.  A few years back I had taken part in a Race for Life with a friend.  It had never occurred to us to do anything other than walk the whole thing, so we did.  But I remember looking at the runners with envy and thinking, "Wouldn't it be great to be running it?"  Back then I didn't give a thought to such things as finishing times and personal bests because those terms were meaningless to me.  Just...