No sleep last night. I worked from home, and was still trying to solve a deeply fascinating problem at midnight, when I went to bed. The trouble was, I couldn’t push the thoughts from my head, and six hours of fruitless rumination later, I got up and went running instead.
It was an odd experience. I kept sort of ‘waking up’, even though I was running along the road. In the end I got fed up with this, and decided to leave my spirit in a cosy ditch beneath a warm-looking hedge while the physical bit went off for a run. The Bone and Blubber Department was having such a good time on its own that it very nearly forgot to collect my consciousness on the way back. This would have been profoundly inconvenient once I’d got to work.
I actually tried to add a bit of fartlek to this morning’s run. It’s funny how we can keep getting the same advice without thinking that it’s really meant for us. Tax returns, smoke alarms, little bits of carpet underneath our cauliflower plants, tyre pressure, positive thinking, testicular cancer, mortgage insurance, backing up your data, half an onion in the fridge. (Or should that be half a lemon?) For the two years I’ve been running, everything I’ve read and heard involves the mantra about varying training. Tempo run – intervals – hills – long & slow – cross training…. It’s only just occurred to me that maybe they’re talking to me. Me! And so, this morning I fartleked my way round the normal early-morning round-the-block 3.5 miles. And it felt good (afterwards), and made the run more interesting.
I just wish I’d been there to enjoy it.
