One person’s mountain

Today I noticed a complete difference in Nayoung who was already waiting on the kerb side outside her house this morning.

Today we were going to see whether we could run as much as possible and only have a brief walk up the hills at Goddington Park, Orpington. It has been good for me to start again just to help reaffirm that one person’s mountain is another person’s mole hill and soon we will be running them instead of a cheeky little walk once in a while.

Today we ran really well and we talked briefly about the new tether we were using which was really useful as I was worried that she seemed to be pulling it hard and did it mean she wanted me to slow down, no, it was just her putting some tension on it to get more feedback from me. It transpires that she did this when she felt a bit worried about the terrain and so I have made a mental note to talk her through those sections and to shorten the tether...all good stuff we are learning off each other.

I once again apologised for talking too much in between instructions but she is apparently OK with this. 

To the last hill, we were determined to get up it and so for no reason at all I started to sing "Girl on Fire" by Alicia Keys which we stormed but I suspect was Nayoung's way of getting me to shut up as quickly as possible!! :-)

Next week we are going to do our inaugural parkrun, Nayoung really is a Girl on Fire.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

...the knife dropped to the kitchen floor and skittered to a halt in the centre of the room...

"Then without warning the moment froze like the pause button had been clicked on a film I was watching and I found myself standing in the Myatts Field Estate, Camberwell 24 years in the past facing a screaming man who was holding a bloodied 12 inch carving knife to my face, I could smell his acrid breath and could feel his spittle splatter my face as he ranted incoherently , I was a Police Officer and I was there to stop him...."

This was a full blown flashback to an incident I have never talked about even to my wife and friends not then, not now but it seems right to get it out here but not everything, it was not a good day for the knife man who I arrested as I could hold my own in a bar fight in those days as he fell to the floor, the blood covered knife that was in his hand skittering to a halt in the centre of the room.

This is my curse, this is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it can pull me into places with no warning. This scene has been spinning around by mind for the past 48 hours, always there just out of reach like an itch you couldn't scratch.

My distraction this evening was to go to the track and try out some reps, run 150 metres, walk 50 metres and repeat until I got to 5 km. It was a great distraction for the 30 or so minutes and I enjoyed it as I finished someone shouted at me about lane infringement, I shouted back and soon I was back thinking about that incident 24 years ago, it will go soon waiting for something to replace it in a few years time.

Some people don't like minimalist runners

Saturday has come and gone but still needs to be mentioned as a really successful training session. 

Last week I went to the British Blind Sport website to buy two new tethers, one for Nayoung and the other for myself just in case one of us forgot and for the princely sum of £6 each saw it a bargain as well as a nice donation to the cause.

Arriving at the park Nayoung and I were in a really good mood and we decided to continue our Run/Walk strategy for now so that we didn't strain ourselves. I was soon telling her about my week and we both laughed about my students and the things they got up to. Nayoung told me a gruesome tale when she broke her ankle once in Turkey and the series of events that took place. Let me just say, I was happy I had already had my breakfast. At the end of her tale I looked at my watch and found that we had been running non-stop for 5 minutes.....this was a big lesson for Nayoung who was amazed but I told her to keep talking as it took her mind off her legs complaining. We completed are run being 4 minutes faster that last week and having run a further 400 metres. I think it is beginning to work.

Why don't people like Minimalist running?

I had to laugh the other day when I received a message, not from one, but two people who thought it their place to tell me to stop running in Vibram Five Fingers, one of them even had the audacity to say:

"...get back in your old running shoes and left the fad, 8 years ago they were the rage..."sic

How little this person knows me, I have never been a lover of fads or fashions but this type of shoe is perfect for me. I also don't think they realize that I do wear other shoes when running depending on the type of run and how far. They also have to look at my record of injury, like my running style, minimal.

Sorry for finishing this blog with a sour note but I am a believer that if the shoe fits wear it and if it works for you, do it.

Happy Running

Slowly but Surely

Dearest Reader,

I will do my best not to write about every training run that I will be doing over the coming weeks but it, well, keeps my motivation up.

The past week has seen me working past my contracted hours but also lecturing on two of those evenings, so I was basically extremely tired and would have happily curled up on the sofa for a nap. I have a plan, to get picked up by a friend to go to the track....nothing like peer pressure!

The track was great as usual, everyone was doing 400 metre lap reps with a rest in between but as usual I went about doing my own thing gently jogging around lane 2 and 3 away from the guys doing speed work. I know I am going back to basics but I am overweight at the moment and it is important to get the ground work in and not do something silly to put me off.

It seems so long ago when I talked of running a 20 mile run each week or running a marathon with 20 hours notice but my first goal is to just feel happy running again and see where it rakes me.

With all my love,

Jerry