The title of this post has two meanings – one, I’m literally back on the blog, having taken a break over Christmas and January (for reasons I will explain) and also, two – today was my first race of the 2016 race calendar, along with my first long run of the year, meaning I am back in a running sense as well. And it feels good.
After my last post about not being too hard on yourself over the Christmas period, I took my own advice and relaxed – A LOT! So much so that over December I managed to put on 11 pounds! I told you I was going to eat my body weight in mince pies (see picture above!) December is my birthday month as well as Christmas, but even so I think that is pretty impressive. But I enjoyed the time off and the chance to relax with family. I have read in the past that elite runners can sometimes put on up to a stone in their off season and that this is how it makes the months of relentless training do-able, knowing you will have some time at some point to relax and be a bit easier on yourself. So I wasn’t too annoyed with myself and saw it as a challenge to get back to where I wanted to be as quickly as possible in the New Year.
I have since spent January working on getting back to pre-Christmas fitness, and this included a complete boycott of social media as well, as I aimed to focus on myself, my goals and my fitness and not get sucked in to what other people are doing and posting about on social media regarding New Year resolution nonsense, which makes you feel bad if you aren’t doing the same things, but then you don’t hear any more from them past February. This is why the blog posts, along with my Twitter and FaceBook, have been silent for a while.
Today saw my first race of 2016 (a very rainy 10k with a full head cold) and I also had to make it up to 30k in total (18 miles) to fit in with my ultra training, meaning I ran to the race, raced, ran another lap of the course, then ran home. I didn’t focus at all on my time for once, I just enjoyed the feeling of getting a long run under my belt and the excitement of the upcoming 2016 race season. And a focused January working on my base fitness again means I am now only 2 pounds over my optimum racing weight, so the Christmas excess has been erased already.
I’m glad I went easy on myself, but man, it’s good to be back!
Even though I have been missing from the blog for a while, I do have lots to blog about, so look out for upcoming posts on –
Ultramarathon training, the details about the marathon training plan I used last year which worked a charm, why I joined a running club and how much I am enjoying it, my running mantras, my running goals for 2016, all about my 2nd vegan birthday, my 2nd running birthday and an update on mileage to date, the amazing documentary ‘Run Free’ , how it has inspired me and why you should see it.
But growing up is optional 