I went out for a ‘run’ this morning and found myself in the worse shape I’ve ever been. I got around 5k but the vast majority of it was walking. It seems like I can only manage around 300 metres before I am fighting for breath. The fatness and unfitness is somewhat overwhelming.
It took me 50 minutes to complete the distance which is by far the longest time I’ve ever taken to ‘run’ 5 kilometres. So, how am I going to extract a silver lining from this? Hopefully the title of this piece may give you a clue. I cannot possibly see any way I could ever get slower than this so let’s say this is as bad as it gets and work forward from that.
The other silver lining is that I’m not injured, so I can go out again reasonably soon and do it again. I do get injured awfully easily but as long as I drop to a walk whenever something feels like it is being stretched or strained, then hopefully, over time I shall build up some strength and resilience.
Plus points this morning are that it was a glorious morning, and although disappointed that my body was in such poor shape I did really enjoy being outside and soaking up the sunshine and my surroundings. I ran around the village and there was a lovely moment running up a small hill into the trees where I got a flashback to Race To The Stones where we were all running through the trees up onto the Ridgeway and it felt glorious. I only got a faint echo of that feeling this time but it was good to just absorb even a tiny bit of that moment.
I finished the run, lay down for a moment feeling exhausted and then did some stretches. I had purposefully finished near the outdoor gym equipment so I did a few minutes on that to finish.
A frustrating morning in many ways but lots of good stuff to take me forward.