Sweet Single Track

On Saturday, my long time running buddy, Tam, and I went on a little adventure. It kinda got changed last minute and I came up with the idea to just explore things from my house (so I could be close by if Verity was fussing and not taking a bottle). It could have been pretty boring, and for the first 5 or so kilometres, I think Tam was thinking that was where we were headed. I was sure though, that we would find bush that would eventually lead us to some tracks that I know well. It was that bit of bush in between that really intrigued me.

Well that bit of bush in between, it contained some awesome single track. The single track was made more awesome by the rainy weather and the beautiful setting. We may have been on scout property but there were no signs or gates to tell us that we couldn't be there, so we went with it. I have honestly not had this much fun running in over a year. I am not as confident on single track as I once was (losing your sense of a balance a bit for several months while your belly carries a parasite/baby can do that to you), but I am getting it back. It was exhilerating flying down those paths and well worth it to head back up. By the end of the run my legs were heavy and I was just shattered, but that good kind of shattered, where you go home and stretch and lie on the floor, picturing all that beautiful scenery in your head over and over again. I can't wait to explore more of it next weekend!

This is a map of the really fun bits.

Pressure's Off

I had this idea in the back of my mind when I was pregnant, that I didn't want to use a baby as an excuse to not run, or to not run much. I didn't want my baby to be an excuse for becoming unfit. I set myself some very specific goals, despite having no idea how my body would recover from pregnancy and labour.

I still agree with my general idea that I shouldn't use it as an excuse, but I need to add a bit more to the end of that - don't use the baby as an excuse when it isn't one. Sometimes my daughter is a valid excuse. Despite the ideas I may have gotten from 'Save Our Sleep', I have found that I cannot simply schedule a run during one of V's naps for any number of reasons: she wakes up constantly thoughout the nap, she only naps for 30mins and I planned a 90 min run or simply, I need to use that time to have a shower and brush my teeth because she won't give me a chance to do that any other time. The thing is, that doesn't happen every day, and I can at least do something. If she wakes up every 10 minutes, well I can do some good interval training and if she wakes up after half an hour, well a half hour run is better than nothing. The biggest issue that I am facing is that I can never really leave the house without V these days. Most of the time Chris is at work and even when he isn't, I only have a short window of time where I can go out before V cracks it for a feed (and she won't take a bottle anymore). We do have a treadmill though, and I am starting to think that V will be able to go in the jogger pram soon. So I have other options.

I guess what I have learnt is that I need to be flexible. There is no point having a training program because most of the time I can't plan like that. So I have changed my goals. I no longer want to achieve x kilometres per week or finish a particular race. I simply want to get as fit as I reasonably can. Yesterday I had planned to do a 15km trail run, but by the time Chris got home I didn't have enough time to get to the forest and run, so instead I headed out the front door, on the road. After a few kilometres though, it occured to me that I wouldn't be able to do 15km before V needed a feed (I had forgotten that Chris getting home late affected that timing too), so instead I cut it down to 10km. So my 15km trail run turned into a 10km road run. According to my new goal though, I achieved what I set out to - I did the best I could.

I find it hard to let go of structure and training programs. Hard to let go of the races I want to do. Hard to let go of my particular relationship with running. I need to though. I need to take the pressure off myself. Otherwise I will never love running the way I used to.