Destruction of Mojo

When you begin a journey there are many potential trials and tribulations along the way, some are your fault, come are the fault of others, some are just a bit of sh!tty luck. The journey I am referring to is that from non-runner to runner, from casual runner to marathon runner then on to Ultrarunner, club runner to club committee member, from amateur to qualified endurance running coach. It’s true, I don’t do things by halves, if I am inspired to do something I go all out, the downside of this of course is when that is taken away from you it doesn't half smart.

When I first began running I face-planted the pavement giving myself a black eye and painful wrist from the way I landed. In my first marathon although completing in a faster time than expected my poor running style led to a knee injury which took me out of the game for about 6-8 weeks. When I got my parkrun PB I pushed so hard that I crossed the line and stood near the bushes trying not to vomit for about 10 minutes whilst I recovered. The only DNF I have to my name, at the Hastings Half Marathon where after reaching the highest point of this notoriously hilly course my knee gave up and I have to wait shivering for the bus to bring me back to the finish.  During my solo Thunder Run the weather was so bad it took me over 45 minutes to peel off my mud-soaked clothes whilst sobbing as I was cold and convinced that everyone was disappointed in me (these things happens when you have been running for over 14 hours). The worst, the realisation that that bump in my car, that woman who wasn't paying attention to traffic and rear-ended me had taken away all that hard work. Yes, I do blame her. Okay it was an accident but she did this to me. I didn't over train, I didn't do anything, in fact I was driving to the gym to train! It might be petty and childish but she is responsible yet only I can fix it.

Now, as my back is strengthening I am finding it really difficult, knowing what I was capable of and not being able to do it is miserable. Another side affect of being unable to train like I could before is weight gain. I try to eat healthily and cook from scratch, yes I make the odd cake and go out for dinner from time to time but I monitor this. Then begins the vicious circle, carrying more weight makes running harder, you must run more to burn the weight off….

The week before last I went on a run with Jerry and Duncan, it was so lovely to be back out with them. But let’s look back at this, we walked a fair amount and if we hadn't I wouldn't have been able to manage it – gentlemen as ever they were accommodation to my weaknesses.  I arrived home over the moon to have been back out on the trails but also sad that I still had so far to go to get it back to where I could hold my own again.

There are of course many great moments also, there must be because if there were not why would so many of us keep putting on our trainers and heading out of the door. If you read back to some of those more grim moments listed above my blogs still look at the positives, the new PB, the amazing achievement of running for 24 hours, the support from friends and family, not the DNF though, that was rubbish!

These great moments  - to my regular readers you will be familiar with many more of these –  currently seem a long time ago so it’s important for me to have a little run down memory lane to remind myself and hopefully get the mojo back which has been somewhat elusive over the last two years.

I am not afraid of the hard work required to get it back but my body just doesn't feel able to anymore....