Everyone's busy today. Father's Day. It would also have been my Dads birthday...so a bit of an emotional car crash on both ends of the spectrum of life. Running, I find, is about not giving up. The temptation is there, always, but strength comes in the form of keeping going and getting to the end. My run this morning stopped before I'd even managed to cross the road. About 4 steps in, I had this huge shooting pain down the top of my back and shoulder.
I couldn't breath and had to stop. It hurt like hell and felt like I was being stabbed or possibly shot. Then again I could be having some kind of catastrophic haemorrhage...or maybe just a slightly pulled muscle! I could turn round and go back - failure, walk straight to coffee - cheap...or carry on - heroic. But then it went away, so I carried on, feeling slightly cheated from the chance of an early bath. But my run was rubbish. All 12 miles of it. And I didn't just keep stopping when the going got tough,
I even stopped half way through really flat straight bits and just walked. No mental resolve whatsoever. It feels so wrong and bad to give up like that...it just adds to the sense of failure. There's such a lot going on in my head, I use my runs to keep it clear and focussed, channel all the stuff in your life through your legs. But it's all got the better of me today. I guess you're allowed a bad run now and then. The first day of summer today...apparently!
