Psychology – Page 36 – My Outdoor Living Room

Mixing it up

Well the illness that held me down last weekend was starting to dissipate by Wednesday and I didn’t fancy another weekend watching from the sidelines. I ended up by really looking forward to the weekend, and spent a chilled out Friday night catching up with stuff on TV, hoping for a good night’s sleep.

I definitely got a good night’s sleep because I overslept. Unfortunately, Saturday morning is Park Run time and I’m on a pretty good streak at the moment, edging towards completing 100 runs. I’m in an unofficial competition with a mate of mine to see who can get to 100 first. As it stands, I have a distinct advantage but I can’t afford many slip ups. When I got out of bed on Saturday, I wasn’t too worried, just get dressed, jump in the car and head down there. 5 mins, job done. However, it dawned on me as I was getting ready that the car, and indeed the roads, were frozen solid. It would take 15 minutes to clear the car, and I would definitely miss the run. Only one thing for it. I would have to run the two miles to the park, and only had 12 minutes to do it in. Long story short, I did it, but only just. I sprinted across the field to the start line where everybody was lined up ready to go. I must have looked hilarious. I slipped in to the line just in time to hear, 3…2…1…Go! A tough run, silly story, but a good one to recall all the same.

A few years ago, the same friend who introduced me to tabbing, also introduced me to a local-ish 10 mile cross country race that happens every February. A kind of curtain raiser for the year. Sunday just gone was my fourth. I like this event particularly because of its atmosphere and reputation as well as for the fact that you don’t get a medal! I’m not sure about all this medal (or bling) lot. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a few medals that I’m incredibly proud of and are a memento of a great day, but I don’t enter races just to get them. Anyway, given the week I’d had with the black death and all, I knew I wouldn’t be shooting for a personal best on Sunday, so I decided to run it in my military boots, carrying my Bergen. It made it a test of another dimension and I thoroughly enjoyed it, feeling the pressure of another kind. It made me think about doing it with other events like half marathons and 10k races etc.

In a roundabout way, both weekend events required my mindset to switch tracks – to crack on and complete my task in whichever way possible. Granted, a little surreal, but that’s what makes the adventure all the more richer.

King of the Ill

It only happens once a year. A bit like the tax return, or Christmas, but last Friday afternoon, just as the weekend came into view…I got ill.

I managed to get up fine on Saturday and go to the ParkRun, probably running quicker than I should have done, given how I was beginning to feel. I started off steady and got competitive! What started out as a “making up the numbers, pleased to be here, just going to enjoy it blah blah” run, turned into a pretty intense sub-20 minutes 5k. Again, despite feeling on the brink, I went for a walk in the afternoon, trying to keep illness at bay. I have a very strong “get up and go” attitude when I’m ill, preferring to carry on as normal and just get on with it. By Saturday evening however, things were looking bleak. My get up and go attitude seemingly had gotten up and gone. Being male, I was the most unwell person in the world. I took to the sofa, then bed, and began going over my Will and insurance policies. With all that over with, I slipped into a paracetamol-induced coma and spent ten hours having trippy dreams, with surreal shapes whizzing about and having conversations with dead relatives.

Eventually, after what felt like the longest night, morning came. As odd as it sounds, I still harboured ideas of going for a ten mile run with my 20kg Bergen. Over the course of the day, my attitude adjusted accordingly, and not wanting to fail RED January right at the end, I went for a lung-burning, mucus-moving, ill-advised 5k run in the late afternoon.

I look back now, partly thanks to the miracles of what could be found in the chemists, and I’m glad I went out. Granted, if it wasn’t RED January I more than likely would have stayed in. On Monday evening, I barely scraped a mile and wore more layers than I would if I were in the mountains. But just as a friend reminded me, it’s only a mile, but they all count. Strangely it was only the cold that worried me. Once I got out there and saw that the ungritted pavements looked like glass, it dawned on me that I might actually slip on my arse. I’m surely due one soon as I believe it was 2017 that I last got on the wrong side of Jack Frost. But sure enough, my self-proclaimed nickname of The Cat, lived up to its hype. I stayed on my feet with dignity in tact. In fact, The Cat nickname is more likely down to my past reputation of scratching at the door at around pub closing time, looking for milk.

As I now reach mid-week, I’m almost back to normal and inevitably I’m thinking, “I could have ran 3 miles instead of 1”. Better look at that Will again.