Stripping

It has been a wee while since my last post. Well, technically the definition of 'wee' is "little; very small; tiny; minuscule" so if 18 months is your definition of wee, then we are all good to proceed! (If not, just go with it!) The timing of my last post was to herald the countdown to one of the biggest adventures of my life, climbing the 'roof of Africa' Mount Kilimanjaro. It was all about the prep, the packing, what to take, what not to take, advice, training and all the other key things you would expect to follow on the lead up to this awesome challenge. Don't fret reader, this isn't a doom & gloom post, I did make it to the roof of Africa and I am incredibly proud that, along with my two best friends, we made it there and back in one piece with very little drama - but lots of tears, laughter, memories, newly forged friendships and an abundance of pride! But life got in the way of keeping a blog up to date with all of the training, the purchases, the packing, what I decided to take, what I left behind and all that jazz. Everyday life continues during this time of preparation and one of the casualties of this was blogging. It's a shame, as I found it a great outlet to share my random ramblings, babble and general witterings that crowd my grey matter throughout the day. It's a bit like therapy. Without the expensive therapist and leather chaise lounge. And you dear reader, don't charge me. Awesome! 

Everyday life often does get in the way of things that you were once passionate about. Somethings we can control, other things we can't. We can try to hang onto these 'things', be they habits or hobbies, but sometimes we lose our grip and let it go. With all the will in the world, you want to hold onto it but it slips from your grasp. Some may say that if you were truly passionate about it then you would hold on with both hands, tie a brick to it, wrap a rope around it, do all you can to make sure that it wouldn't slip away from you but it's not always that easy. I have been the culprit of having a slightly weak grip on a few things that I haven't been able to maintain my grasp on and, unbeknown to me, they have had a concertina effect on other things that have subsequently been let go of. It's snowballed and gathered momentum but I feel it's now time to put the brakes on the momentum, chuck it in reverse and re-establish a mighty grip on a few 'things'. 

A lot of the posts on my blog have been running related. I started running properly i.e. Frequently training & entering races, a few years back, and it was awesome! It became a huge part of my life and I'm sure I bored everyone around me to tears with my constant chitchat about training runs, miles I had run, events I had entered, my thresholds or hill sessions, how my Garmin wouldn't get satellite signal until a few minutes into my run. Damn, I'm yawning just writing this! But I didn't care because I LOVED running. I loved how it made me feel, physically and mentally and I couldn't wait to don my trainers and head out the door for another run pretty much as soon as got back from one. I took on some brilliant challenges and was very proud of all my achievements. It culminated with me completing my first ultra in January of his year, Country to Capital - 45 miles from Wendover to Paddington. It was a hard slog, both the training and on the day itself, but again, I was so proud of my achievement of completing it, and thankful for all the amazing support from family & friends on the run up to and on the day itself (spare a thought for Sam & Lucy having to take public transport to meet me at a checkpoint #BusWankers, my Mum who 2weeks before had a transplant but still came to meet me at the finish line and also for poor @UltraBoyRuns for having to listen to me moan & waffle on for 10 hours; you guys deserve a special medal for that alone!) The post event pride and sense of achievement remained for a while but I soon found that I had floundered with my running. Whether I took too much  time off to recover or the post event blues got a tighter grip on me than I realised or if for another reason I can't pinpoint was to blame I don't know but I found I literally couldn't be arsed to run. Nothing seemed to make me want to get the ol' trusty trainers back on and    clock up some miles. Not even my expanding waistline was motivation. Nor was thinking back to how good running made me feel. Those once addictive endorphins or skinny jeans were not a big enough dangled carrot to tempt me out to pound the pavements or trails. This 'thing' had slipped from my grasp. 

In the months that followed, I had a fleeting return to running & exercise and a brief resurgence of the buzz of endorphins. I signed up to a 90 day online diet & exercise plan in an attempt to give me focus and reinvigorate the discipline I once had. But again, I allowed my grip on these things to loosen and my enthusiasm waned. Work got incredibly busy. Family illness. My heart got broken (as did my toe in a totally unrelated incident!!) Did I mention that work got busy!? Excuses? Probably. People going through worse things? Absolutely. But we all cope differently under pressure and something has to give. Turns out, I gave up a few things. The things that I previously prioritised high up the list slipped down the rankings and pretty much off the page. I tried on various occasions to reestablish a few good habits but they never lasted long.  This isn't a woe is me post and please don't think that I've been a miserable mardy arse since January wallowing & skulking about in my own self pity with my face tripping me. I haven't. I've been active, I've done some awesome fun things, got outside, climbed some mountains, binged watched Netflix, been on a family holiday of a lifetime, met awesome people, laughed until I cried and made some brilliant memories. But all with my spark shining a little duller than before. So, "great", I hear you say (if you're still with me & haven't stopped reading) "you've told us that you used to love running, your hand strength has been a bit shoddy and you've lost your grip on some 'things';  you ran an ultra, you stopped liking running, you put on weight and some good & not so good stuff about your year. So what, EmLa, what's the post actually about?" Well, I'll tell you, just bear with me a wee while longer, I promise it won't be 18 months before I get to the answer! 

During the year, I have read many, many social media posts, blogs and listened to many a podcast in the search of reigniting my spark. Many of these have reiterated things you and I already know help to inspire and encourage us to have a 'happy and contented' life, from a good balanced diet to exercise to planning fun thing so to do, keeping a thankful journal and daily affirmations to name a few. I am not mocking, knocking or criticising these methods or lifestyle choices, they are around as proven methods that help people in various ways. Each to their own and what works for one won't work for another, you have to do what you believe in and what suits you. What I do find challenging is that in a quest to find my spark, I found myself overwhelmed with advice, tips (this is the correct word, 'hacks' makes me a little bit angry!) and suggestions on how I can be happier and content in my life. Some offered tips  that were/are useful, others I felt would take up my entire day writing post it note reminders of what I should be doing/feeling at a particular time of the day. In essence, I found the volume of advice, tips and tricks to be a tad overwhelming and all a bit much! Yes, I sought out these posts and podcasts, so may have brought it on myself but I realised that in a quest to find the magic solution of regaining a bit my missing flare, that there was no such thing. It  doesn't exist. It can't be found on a blog or IG post or amongst the mele of podcasts out   there. Advice is there to be taken if you want it and we are all guilty of being drawn into a rabbit hole of posts, videos and episodes looking fir the answer. But what I have found to be the common denominator in all of the social media posts is that it can make you feel shit. Totally shit about your life, about how you feel and look. You unwittingly compare yourself to others and bench yourself against their posted achievements, such as their ability to balance a busy life with the same challenges you have to deal with but they are coping MUCH better than you; how they manage to have a good hair day every goddam day despite having curly hair and it's raining and their lives are just brimming with happiness and yours feels like a bit of a mess. Clearly leaving the reader or listener with this feeling is not the intention of those who post, well I hope it's not! But in this age where we have constant access to sharing every aspect of our lives online comes the inevitable feeling of not being good enough. I'm not talking about everyone here - there is nothing wrong with celebrating your own awesome achievements, whatever they may be. Damn it, celebrate that shit & shout it from the roof tops. I guess the 'watch out' is to the reader of said post; be happy, genuinely pleased for that person and their achievement but remember it's their journey, a snapshot of their life that they have chosen to share. It's not a 100% reflection of their daily life. And it's not to be compared to you and yours. But you know that, right? I do but on occasions it slips from my mind. Especially when I'm finding it hard to keep a grasp on 'things'. What I've learned is, the main 'thing' is to strip back everything to the basics; I am me, unique, annoying, quirks and all. I don't need to follow a plan or programme to make me happy (or should I say happier). The only way to get my spark back is to stop comparing myself to others,  trust in myself, stop worrying what others think about me and do what I enjoy, for the sheer enjoyment of it and that should be enough. I'll find my spark along the way. (And I'll work on my grip strength too). 

Drawing a line in the sand

Sadly, this is not a literal post. I am not on a beach somewhere wildly exotic, a local lethal cocktail next to me and a punkawhallah with palm leaves in hand, cooling me down. I’m in good ol’ Blighty in my little home writing this but don’t let that detract from the topic!

My first post of 2015 had a lovely response. On publishing it, I was slightly concerned that it had unintentionally come across as a bit ‘woe is me’ but thankfully it was not read that way and the comments on the blog, via FB, text and email were nothing but supportive and encouraging. This is one of the reasons I love blogging and social media in general – like minded people, supporting and encouraging like minded people! Keep that shit up likeminded people, its ace – and so are you!!

The week after ‘the blog post’ I ran my first no-pressured run of the year and I had promised myself that I would run with my heart and not my head. No time pressures, try not to look at my damn Garmin every 5 mins, don’t try and keep up with others as they are all running their own race/event, and last but most importantly, ENJOY it! The event was the Chilly 10k, a multi-lap run at Castle Combe race circuit. Urgh. I am not a fan of multi-laps as it psychologically messes with my tiny brain but I was trying to adopt, embrace, and put to the test, this new mindset. I met up with my running buddy Lorain and her sister Ragin who were also running and we met just as the race briefing was hollered at us through the loudspeaker. Then it was a short walk from the paddock onto the race track and we were soon lined up and ready for the off. Repeating calm, soothing thoughts to myself and trying to listen to my music more than my laboured breathing was a real challenge. It’s a race, people compete. It’s what we hooomins do. There are people there to prove many different things to themselves or others, on their own journey, completing their own challenges and doing their own thing. And this was what I had to remind myself as I plodded around. Everyone is doing their own thing. And I should only concentrate on my own thing.....so I tried to keep myself in check and just run. The results were interesting. My splits were erratic, as the nature of me is to try and pick people off as the miles tick by and I started to do just this, and then checked myself to just run it, hence a wibbly-wobbly pace. That said, I did have my eyes set on a chap a few hundred metres in front of me who I used as a pacemaker; if I kept him in my sights, I would be happy. My mind was a tad numb from the lack of inspirational or stimulating scenery and it wandered, contributing to the erratic splits. I think there was even a jazz-hands-sing-out-loud moment to try and break the monotony (I’m painting a bit of a bleak picture, it wasn’t that bad, as race tracks go; not sure I’ve mentioned it but multi-lap races are just not my thing!) Back to the chap running a bit in front of me. I caught him up with about ¼ mile to go. And I was hot on his heels as we entered the slightly winding, funnelled finishing bit. I managed to tell him, in a slightly breathy-gasping manner that he was my pacemaker and he had to get me to finish. The race was on and he challenged me hard to the finish line, the bugger! Garmin stopped, high five to my unofficial pacemaker (there’s a bit of footage of this and it makes me smile when I watch it!) and a time check. Only 14 seconds slower than my 10k PB. I officially ran happy!

And since then, I’ve made a concerted effort to ‘switch off’ from pacing my runs. Work has been manic and it’s hard to fit in structured training at times. It’s therefore been pleasantly surprising to find that taking the pressures off of myself has resulted in some really enjoyable runs and most surprisingly, some pretty speedy times too. Just last week, I knocked out a 3 mile run with splits of 09:26, 08:17 and 07:03. An almost 7 minute mile!! HELL YEEEAAAH!! And this I love. I don’t care if I don’t ever repeat that time as I know I did it and can do it – even if my legs felt like they didn’t actually belong to me. (Doing it for more than one mile may be a challenge but hey ho, I’ve done it!) Yes, I have a few running events to train for in the coming weeks and months but I aim to enjoy them rather than ‘smash’ them and I’m looking forward it. No pressure other than to finish.

It is early days but I definitely feel that I am getting back to rediscovering my love of running and once again enjoying the benefits of running for me. So, I may not be sat on a beach with a spade in hand physically drawing my line in the sand, but believe me, the line is drawn!