ourbigfatgreeklife

Pah! That’s easy. Is my reaction to my first challenge as a ‘Too fat to run’ blogger. I have to schedule 3 days in this first week of September to:

Oh. Well, this doesn’t really apply to me as I am in week 7 of a 12 week half marathon training (puffs out chest, looks smug). So what do I do?

Read the challenge again.

‘Reboot’

Blimey, I can’t reboot any more than I have been over the past 7 weeks. I have been slavishly pounding the streets of Faliraki three times a week as the sun is still rubbing sleepy dust from her eyes.  I’ve even given up wine! I mean, I’m pretty rebooted as rebooting’s go.

Although since my long run on Sunday (10k I’ll have you know) I have been feeling a bit broken. My legs feel like someone is putting screws through the side of my shins with a hand held screwdriver. My calves are tighter than a Greek waiters trousers.

I attempt my next training run on Tuesday and set out to do 6.5k. But I am thwarted from the start. Someone has eaten all the banana’s. I plod round, torn between going fast (relative term) to get it over with and slowing down to make it easier on my poor, abused little (also a relative term) legs. In my fifth kilometer I decide that nobody should have to run in the morning without a banana. Besides, my legs really ache. I call it a day. Actually I call my husband to come and pick me up.

Not for the first time do I contemplate how much commitment and focus this whole training lark requires. But for the first time I wonder if I should be doing it at all. I push that thought away and seek some answers. I turn to ‘The Clubhouse’, as well as google, to get some advice.

I ask the most burning question ‘should it hurt this much’ and this brings on topics such as post long-run ice baths, refueling, sports drinks and stretching.   I watch a 25 minute yoga session especially put together for runners, by a runner. I throw off the bag of frozen peas from my shins and rummage through the coat cupboard to find my yoga mat, before I remember that I never had one. A beach towel will do and no time like the present. And my goodness, those stretches hit the spot! I finish my abridged version of the session and lie on my back, legs relaxed, palms up for my final deep breaths. This is where I wake up 3 hours later.

Read the challenge again, I tell myself. There must be something I can take from this.

There it is. My reboot will be adding yoga sessions to my training program! While I am doing them I will focus on my running, thinking positive thoughts to get me to that race and finishing it within the cut off time!

If you need me, I will be tying myself in knots in the garden. Or legs relaxed, palms up, asleep.