Man up.

OK, two things. Yesterday's run, and today's run.

First off, Runkeeper clearly wasn't working yesterday. I hate to say this, but I don't think my run was 5k. Fortunately all is not lost, because my workout probably was, as I ran 5k, stopped for tea, and then walked home... and today's run was 5k.

Anyway, yesterday's run was most interesting, because I was wearing my new bare-foot shoes. I wasn't entirely sure on technique, but I went for slow, and the way that felt like it would hurt least. I liked feeling the road underneath me. And when there was some grass, I ran on that, and it was even better. It was good. I thought, this barefoot running, it's for me. I stopped to bother Ian on the way home, and realised it was probably late enough to appear unseemly to be knocking on gentlemen's doors at that time of night, but... well, there was tea.

I then went to bed, and woke at various times of night feeling vaguely as if I'd been wrung through a mangle. In the morning, I felt profusely grateful that it was pilates, and I was going to get a proper stretch. There wasn't any pain. Which was good, of course. But there was a gentle ache throughout my legs, up my back even. I couldn't help thinking that this was more than because I hadn't trained for a month. I mean, I did very little training for the half marathon, ran up stacks of hills, and ached less than this. I didn't think it was attributable to being post-viral either. No, I think it was the barefoot running shoes. I'm excited about this. As I said, it wasn't a bad hurt, just a gentle ache that reminded me of... yes, it reminded me of when I first started running. Because I was doing something new, that I wasn't used to.

So, new plan. Get used to barefoot trainers by the end of this month. Perhaps. If Sally doesn't think that is a very poor idea indeed. The thinking is to slowly up the use of them over the course of the month.

Anyway, onto today. Well, that was today. I had pilates today, at lunchtime. It was stretchy, and great. And I still had to do today's run. **sigh**. I came home, and unusually, Frank was rather brave. The interloper cat came back (I haven't been aware of him for some time). He came right up to the inner cat flap. I got up to chase him off, and Frank did it himself! I was overcome by how brave he was. So, I decided that while I figured out which set of batteries needed replacing (as nothing in the secure catflap appeared to be broken) I'd shut off the cat flap with the mechanical lock. Frank can't get out that way, but he doesn't need to.

So a little while later, when I progressed as far as actually going for the run (about half nine), I totally forgot this when Frank came out with me. I just praised him for his courage as I set out. I was precisely 0.65km into the run when I realised I'd locked him out. I debated going back, of course, but I thought, really, it was time for him to Man up. This lasted till about 1.2km, and then I decided I'd better run faster (I was back in my Nike Pegasus today, of course). I ran faster till about 3km, at which point I started expectorating, I believe the medical term is. Or coughing up, in layman's terms. However, I could practically hear the indignation in Frank's miaows, over the music and everything. I kept on. Instead of running around the top of central park, which had taken me to 5k only yesterday, I ran through it, cutting a corner off. I passed Ian's, and carried on, but was surprised to find that Frank wasn't outside when I came home. Nor had I got to 5k. Never one to give up, I ran to the end of the road and back, which just clinched it. When I got back the second time, Frank was waiting in the window. On the inside.

I initially thought he must have snitched on me, and actually got my neighbour to come over and let him in. However, it turned out that when I was examining the cat flap, I'd somehow not managed to reattach the door properly, and he'd bust through it. I hope it made him feel butch. Because I was bloody knackered. Things I do for that cat.