Hello!  So how is the week going?  Mine’s excellent so far, this four-day week thing is something I feel should be a keeper.  Having said that, it’s definitely been a little on the busy side!

So one of the elements that led up to me signing up for this insanity was that when I first heard about it, I couldn’t run.  In fact, I could barely walk.  Weirdly, it was actually damage to the nerve in my glute, which I couldn’t feel at all, but my foot (ie the other end of the nerve) was agony.  Believe me, I don’t say that lightly (I walked, ran, lifted and climbed around on a broken foot for four months last year and didn’t even really notice) but this was proper, causing-me-to-hyperventilate, tears-pouring-down-my-face pain every time I transferred weight from my left foot to my right.  Normally you’d think that this might not be the best time to sign up to run 260km, but I kind of wanted to prove to myself (and my bargain-basement foot) that I was going to be fine …

Luckily, the damage to the nerve didn’t stop me doing all exercise (or I might have signed up to climb K2 or something) but it did stop me from doing anything with impact, ie running and jumping … literally my two favorite things.  The elliptical/cross-trainer has therefore been a tooooootal godsend and I’ve actually very much enjoyed my sessions on it, but last week the physio cleared me for “minimal” impact.   I have legit never been so excited IN MY LIFE as to do my first run, even though I was also entirely terrified!!  I set out from home to do a whole two kilometres and you know what?  It was amazing.  I didn’t even feel like I’d lost any fitness (thanks cross-trainer), and so even though it was super-short and it was clunky and funky and I probably looked like Phoebe from Friends, it was still proof that my body was going to behave properly and do what I told it.  It was such a weight off my soul!  I didn’t even realise how down it had been making me until I could run again.

That was Monday, and obviously I’ve taken it super slow and easy by doing two more runs since then (I am a total idiot).  Yesterday’s run was 5x 800m on the track off two minutes rest, and today was a fartlek run round Battersea Park mixed up with various body-weight exercises (step-ups, lunges, airsquats and resistance-band deadlifts).  Honestly, I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing it feels to be able to run again!  It just feels like total freedom, like instead of being trapped in a body that isn’t working, I’ve got the power to do anything.  I am 100% certain that I will change my mind about that quick smart when I have to run more than 5km (which is the longest I’ve run so far … ermm, in intervals pahahah) but for now it feels phenomenal.  It feels so good in fact that I came very close to signing up for a 100km ultra (multistage two-day) at the end of the month, but luckily George stopped me since that really would have been a recipe for disaster.  However I’m very much looking forward to seeing what I can do for the rest of the month!

xx