I decided to head out for a little run on Christmas day. I say little, but it actually felt quite long and tough.

Strava tells me that it was a harder-than-usual effort, and it's dead right... For a 10km run, I felt a lot less in control than usual. By the end of it, I was really fatigued. I felt my knees were tired, not sore but strained. It is that classic feeling of having to be put through something that you're not used to. Thats really the definition of strain. Its a lack of training, basically.

I've been on somewhat of a break of late, ever since travelling Europe. I don't mind terribly. It's sort of a self-induced, as-you-go decision. I used to get annoyed with myself if I didn't keep to the vision I had in my head. But I'm not annoyed because my current vision is exactly that, a more relaxed, casual approach to progression than I'd had previously. For instance, I run fairly regularly down to the gym - and that's it. No more weekend long runs for instance.

In fact, I've rarely ever had a plan for my running. I tend to just do what I tell myself to do. If I look back, my 'plan' transpires generally as a pursuit of continual progression of some sort. So that might mean I tend to want to run consistently, instead of aiming to run consistently. If I aim, perhaps that's a plan. I don't know - the distinction I've trying to make now sort of seems silly.

I guess, my plans are all in my head, and never written down. Even in life, what I end up doing tends to be like a drop of water in a pool, it starts off small and they tend to become active or real the moment I decide to act on them, which happens to be the point in which the ripple has developed into a series of progressive evolutions that ultimately is big enough to act upon. These resident ideas gain definition as the days progress. Maybe that's how things should be, i.e, no need to commit to a plan when the conditions around you change?

Anyway, so I'm, I guess, still on that plan, and that plan has adapted to new ideas and feelings that have recently become apparent. So, In this way, my plan then is to do less running, but still to do it fairly regularly and not stress about what specific running I'm doing (long, fast, short whatever).

While I was on my run, and having this proclivity to be a little more casual than in the past about my running, I sort of started feeling that I want to do a little more running. This is good because that means my plan has just changed. To what end, I don't know but I have this feeling that I want to do more regular 10km distances.

One thing I felt while I was running is that the impact on the feet is a lot more intrusive to me, and that could quite possibly be something that is only very apparent to me because I'd not been subjecting myself to this distance regularly. While that makes sense, I think it's also that I'm a lot heavier than I've ever been so that also plays a part so the impact is more.

So, today, which is boxing day, I decided to buy a new pair of running 'springy' shoes. These are interesting because, unlike all my other running shoes, they have carbon plates in them. So it should reduce overall fatigue and mean that I can probably get more comfort while I'm running. So, I'll be taking these out for more runs moving forward.

So let's see what the stats say... also here are the details.

It took about an hour (54 mins) to run about 11km (11.1), which tells me my average pace was 4'58 which is slow but fine however I also managed to run the fastest 400m this year, and it happened to be the 3rd fastest 10km this year too (who knew!). Not that bad really. The next best 10km was in Amsterdam in October (5'32/km), followed by the best, which was in Venice in November (5'25/km). See this for a nice little graph.

So 2022, hasn't been as bad as I thought, granted I didn't do as much running, but what I did do was OK!

Since I don't know when, I went on holiday, a sort of a running retreat in the Highlands of Scotland.

I was prepared for running, something that I like doing but surprisingly to me, it ended being less about running or hiking or anything like that, in fact, for me the trip turned out to be more about people.

The trip was centred around running, but we did some other things too, like going for dinner together in a small highland town, drinking at the local pub, embracing the local people and doing yoga in the town hall, and having cold water immersions in the nearby lake. Its these times that we spent together which I remember the most, and not really the running, which to me became almost secondary.

The backdrop was the picturesque highlands of Scotland, in the quite, cold wilderness among rising mountains and green lush running trails and fresh air accompanied by waters, sometimes still, sometimes trickling down country trails as if the mountains were leaking.  

There were about 15 people, I think, from just about everywhere, and we were all strangers thrown into this pot of magic, and interestingly over the duration of the trip, it was the people that transformed a running retreat on paper, into the sort of long holiday trip you remember as a kid, where it was about just being, having more fun with people you know, eating and celebrating and just being excited.

It was about being in a safe place, comfortable but being part of a new and exhilarating experience, sort of like the first time you experienced something you really liked, and you realised you still had a week to do it. People had fun, they laughed and they joked and they seemed to embrace the opportunity to be themselves, and people let others be themselves. I enjoyed that perhaps the most. No one expected anything from anyone, from me.

Though, while the trip was absolutely spectacular and absolutely worth it, there were realizations, some uncomfortable and some exhilarating and therapeutic. I think sharing real human feelings and realisations is a therapeutic digression from the reality of life.

Pull away the mud, meals, running and joking, and we're people who are dealing with the inevitability of life, trying to figure out what it all means for us, calibrating our situations and purpose in this world.

I think this is what affected me the most because I count myself part of this group too, and it's true what Thoreau said: we are truly living a life of quiet desperation.

And so this trip was more spiritual than physical. It was getting in touch with ourselves, realizing what it is we're really missing, and figuring out how we're going to deal with that. For some it was sharing, being, having fun, and expressing and for others, like me, it was listening, and embracing those wanting thoughts that have been sidelined for far too long. 

My pursuits are singular, and this trip was me realizing that I'd like to become someone more, more able to connect with people, more able to at least trust other people, so I can share my own expression of fun and enjoyment.

That's a result.

Onwards and upwards!

It's winter now.

I've named a specific and very predictable period near the beginning of each of my runs. It usually begins about 1 minute into my run and lasts for at most 2-5 minutes, after which it disappears. I've called it the 'honey run' period. This is because, during this period, it feels like I'm running through honey, i.e it's specifically more difficult. I wonder if it coincides with any specific process such as the jump from anaerobic to aerobic energy system or something specific like that.

I've found that on the run back, that if I stop and wait a while (about 1 minute), and then set off again, the remainder of the run has a totally different feel to it. For example, my stride and technique, seem different and more natural and less laboured. I find that my arms and my hips move differently and it's actually more comfortable. My current thinking is that leading up to this point, that I'm tiring and my technique is poor and needs resetting so to speak. This seems to do it for me.

Interestingly, I was told once by my running partner while running along with Southwark, of her need to 'reset' her technique during her run, which I amusedly dismissed, particularly because of the way she did it - she would double-jump up in the middle of her stride. Surely there was no utility in doing that? Perhaps she was on to something after all. 

I looked at my Vo2 max readings recently and it has been hovering around 56, however recently it has moved up to 60 which seems to indicate that I'm getting fitter, which is good. I do wonder at times if the temperate outside is a co-founding factor in some way.

To deal with the cold, which is exacerbated by icy winds, I've found that wearing a cold-weather Catebury base layer under a thin running top mitigates the cold. This, coupled with a neck covering and a pair of running gloves is very effective. On the run back, I tend to wrap my tracksuit bottoms around my waist and run in my shorts as I've sufficiently warm by then - I wear long tracksuit bottoms initially.