Well, this week has been what the Americans call “kinduva bust”. I’ve completely failed to do my long run – the epic weekly distance-training that bumps up your miles and gets you used to the idea of running for longer than is either sane or necessary.
In my defence, however, my time has been taken up by the fact that I’ve been moving house, 237 miles, from London to Manchester. They say moving house is the second-most stressful thing you can do after getting divorced, but honestly, I would far sooner get hastily married, acrimoniously divorced and ill-advisedly remarried a dozen times rather than go through that shit again.
Anyway, my standard reaction to missing a key part of a training programme I’m following is pretty childish: I tend to act all “Well it’s all just ruined then – ruined!” and I go into a sulk with myself and I don’t do any training whatsoever for a week or two. (Look, I said it was childish, alright? Take that judgey smirk off your face.)
My standard reaction to missing part of a training programme is pretty childish
However, that was back when I was running 10ks and half marathons, and a dropped fortnight of training wasn’t the end of the world. If I start titting around with marathon training, however, I risk creating hefty problems for myself down the line: the distances are carefully calibrated to increase (and then decrease) to a very strict timetable, and given that I essentially don’t know what the hell I’m doing, the less I mess with those calibrations, the better.
So I’m going to have a stern word with myself, do a ‘bonus’ long-ish run this week to make up for the dropped ‘proper’ long run, then return to the plan for week four. Normal service will be resumed – it has to, really, or I’m f—ed, aren’t I?
High point of the week: Well, I got two short (30-minute-ish) runs in, so that’s something. Semi-something. Better than nothing, anyway. Just about.
Low point of the week: I think I’ll probably just write the entire week off, to be honest. But things, as Professor Brian Cox once observed, can only get better.