Born to Run – well only a bit at the moment

What with teeth and laziness the running’s not been going the well.

I think though that there’s a lesson in this for everyone. When we start out with these crazy ideas to get fit and to give up this and that we set impossible targets, mine were week one, give up smoking, week two start running etc. Things like this just don’t work, they don’t pan out and when they don’t we get disillusioned and give up.

I have now discovered – and I should have known this from the acres of experience I have in doing this – that giving up smoking isn’t easy. Even if you manage to overcome all of the psychological trapdoors and mantraps there’s still a heap of physical stuff out there that can’t be avoided. Take for example what the dentist said about a chap who couldn’t stop his gums bleeding whenever he tried to give up, well then every addiction comes with something like that and I thing we should all be a bit more liberal when allowing time to get these projects going and stop being so hyper-self critical.

My giving up smoking hit a psychological blip earlier in the week but so far so good and I’ve not reached for a pack of 20, in fact I had the five and threw the five remaining ones away. I felt physically awful for a couple of days but things are back together now and I’ve just done a run this morning to prove that. My and probably everyone’s physical main physical manifestation of smoking is weak lungs and bad circulation, I’ve had headaches, depression, anger, numbness, terrible trouble with my teeth, tiredness, strange sleep patterns, all these and more mixed in with a whirlwind of other bits and pieces. I think if you’re going to tackle this regimen then you really must consider a month at least of giving up before you tackle the next task. Keep a good eye on yourself while you’re doing it and try to take on each of the problems you have as it comes along and don’t heap any more problems on there in order to satisfy the next stage of getting fit.

Anyway I think I’m up for it, I did a run this morning, I didn’t feel terrible doing it or terrible afterwards, things are starting to settle down so I think I’ll up the ante with my running now.

Anyway I got up and it looked a cracking morning, it looked really still and lovely with lots of sun too. I do love running in the rain, but sun especially early in the morning can be great. Anyway I donned some lightweight gear – including my new Asics 2in1 9inch shorts in Performance Black/Safety Yellow no less, very nice and very snug which was good on a cold morning like this – jumped in the car and headed for Seaton. Arriving there it was a bit dull and there was a really nasty wind pushing southwards. On the way out of Seaton running was easy apart from being pushed along a bit too quickly , coming back was much harder. Actually on the way out I passed a woman running in the opposite direction who simply said to me “I want to turn around”.

Anyway it was a quiet run with a bit of a bad wind and I only managed to see four other runners, two in the opposite direction and two more on the beach. Met a man in the carpark at the finish looking for his car keys, I gave him a bit of a help looking for them when I should have been winding down with a bottle of water, but we didn’t find them.

Also managed to fix my footpod up with a new battery so the cadence figures are back in there. I know that the time isn’t as good as my last time, but I did feel a lot more comfortable, which is supported by the lower heart rate figures that were a bit worryingly high and the fact that I don’t have the sinister metallic taste I had in mouth that I did the other time.

Anyway times were:

Running chart:

Running Graph 11-05-2013

My vital stat’s taken from my scales I took before my run, as I’d not been exercising all week it wasn’t surprising that I’d gone a bit backwards, I’ll have to keep an eye on this should I not manage to get any more exercise in.

Weight: 11 stones 7.6 lbs

BMI: 23.9%

%Fat: 20.6

%Water: 58.1%

%Muscle: 40.9%

Visceral Fat: 10

BMR: 1619