Stagnation

I know you probably all think I am backing up with hundreds of posts again, and are all agog to keep up with my busy schedule. Sadly, this has not been the case, although I was put in the peculiar, and uniquely disturbing, position on Monday of emailing Sal to say I thought I should get back on the case anyway, and the hell with the cold, and she reiterated the importance of my waiting until the cold had subsided. Training through a cold prolongs the cold. Let me tell you something about me and colds - we have a long and not very fascinating history together: briefly, though, I get them often, and they stay a long time. So on the one hand, I'm in favour of not prolonging them for any longer than they already stay; but on the other, it could take out a lot of training time. However, the current, disturbing scenario was that I was begging to go running, and being told, no, by the fitness freak. This was deeply unsettling. On the other hand, I didn't have to go running, which was OK. I did feel a bit **eugh** so not going was something of a relief. And Sal said I had to listen to my body, and the message it was giving was stronger than usual, because there was a definite part of my brain that resented seeing Dave dripping with sweat on the way back from his run, when I was going to get a sandwich. Mind you, he said he did the fengate run at 7.5 minute miles, which would explain the sweat. I couldn't run for 20 minutes at that pace. I doubt I could run to the end of the road, to be honest.

On Wednesday, I did go to my pilates class. Well, it's hardly aerobic, is it, and could only help stretching out some muscles. The cold had reached its usual sort of plateau level where it leaves me feeling OK enough to go to work, bar swollen glands around the throat, but exhausted by the end of the day (let me tell you, on Tuesday evening, I turned down wine in favour of tea). I think pilates probably did me good, even though I got Anna into trouble by mentioning to Anita that I'd heard rumours that she'd said that either the classes had been very quiet, or I'd been absent. Anita said, in fairness, that she hates it when we're quiet. (I offered to come to her other classes for a modest fee, but she didn't take me up on it). Oh, I had a quiet evening in, but had a good long facebook conversation with one of our reserves managers who recently left the organisation. I'd tell you his name, but as it's Dave, we're just going to get hopelessly confused. Anyway, he says he's got a new job with RSPB, so I could dub him RSPB Dave, so you don't get confused with Running Dave and Theatre Dave. (And my Dad. Anyone remember him, from my first blog? I've probably blown it trying to hide his true identity for fear of him suing me, so I'll just have to try not to say anything libelous about him or my damaging upbringing.). Anyway, I am trying to persuade RSPB Dave to come and visit us in Peterborough, which would be fun.

I had all but decided to ignore Sal and the final throes of my snotty cold, and go on a short run at lunchtime today. I brought in my running things, and remembered to charge up the garmin and everything. About 10:30, it started chucking down. My day wasn't going terribly smoothly anyway. I'd had a hiccough with Mapinfo in the morning - GIS is one of those things that is amazingly convenient but when you actually try to use it, it eats up hours and hours of your time. Even the GIS person I asked, Babs (AKA the NE tea lady), was unable to laugh derisively and sort out my problem with a couple of easy keystrokes, although she did ultimately sort out my problem. (She did entreat me to get Richard to help, but I actually couldn't do that incase he made reference to the fact I mentioned him on Facebook, which I know he doesn't like, the previous evening, so she had to persist with the problem herself). By lunch time, I'd sorted out the map, but didn't like what it was showing me. It was still raining, which felt like an apt reflection of my spirits. I was in no mood to get wet through, no matter how ambient the temperature was. The remnants of my cold hanging round me like a talisman against running, I was nontheless forced to stomp downstairs and face the misery outside, in the hopes of doing battle, with my bad mood pitted against the elements. I had the good fortune to borrow Jim's umbrella, and a little solace from him as I vented my rage on the way passed, which meant that my mood had some chance at least.

And as if Jim set me off on the right pathway, I passed Justin on my walk, and he said nice things about my blog - he sympathised with my lack of enthusiasm for running in the rain, and says he lacks motivation for running, so I suggested he join the Natural Runners, and he's promised to think about it, even though he's aware that this could make him fodder for the blog. Then I met Jill, and I didn't have the energy to tell her that nothing she says will make me think any less of myself as a director (another long story) so I just buried the hatchet like an adult or something; and then Luke and Keely, who always cheer me up. So it ended up being considerably more sociable than I'd felt like being, and although I did sort of share my bad mood around a bit, on the whole I came back feeling suitably refreshed. 

I started thinking about how uncanny it was that the rest of my life mired at the same point my training did... and then I thought that if you are stuck in stagnant water, the only way out is to make a big stink. Which was pretty much what is going to happen when I get my work sorted out. Oh well. Think I can cope with that.