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.

Chaos

Apologies for the lateness of these blogs (especially to Matt). The reason for this should become clear forthwith.

I’m too busy for this training lark. That does not, of course, mean that I’m quitting. I’ve given up salsa already, but I haven’t stopped the socialising yet. This is difficult. I had some homework to do recently from Sal (her comment indicates she doesn’t remember this, but she probably just doesn’t remember that she referred to it as homework) which was to have a look at a race website and book myself into a 10km race in August. This was extremely tricky, because as I have already mentioned, I’m booked out, weekend wise, till the second weekend in September. Inclusive. However, I’m never one to avoid a challenge, so I’ve found a couple of Sundays where I might be able to rejig things and fit something in.

This weekend, however, is proving to be something more of a challenge. I was booked onto a train this morning at 9:45, which I thought would give me enough time to get to the swimming pool at 8 a.m., get my hour’s training in, and get home for just after nine to pick up my bag and head out.

That was before I spent Thursday night bottling apricot jam until 12:30. This was partly because I had such a suffeit of apricots, and giving them away to some people (like my coach) kind of meant that other people wanted some, so I ended up delivering apricots earlier in the evening, which inevitably took longer than I’d thought. I also had an unexpected delivery of eggs from a colleague that afternoon, and in a moment of blithe generosity, suggested to Susie that I make a quiche and bring it up with me. It would also use up some red peppers kicking about in the bottom of the fridge, and it really upsets me when they go off. I thought about the quiche at 12:30, and being insane, I decided the best thing to do would be to go ahead and make it. I got the butter out of the fridge, and smelled it – I don’t eat butter because of its general unspreadability, and I only buy it to use it in cooking or baking, which I hadn’t done for a couple of weeks. It smelled fine, so I gingerly tasted a bit. GAG. Rancid butter. Ack. I ran to the bathroom gagging, and practically drank a bottle of Listerine. Then I found two of the eggs had cracked on the way home, so there was no option but to have fried eggs for dinner. Oh, and in the excitement, I forgot to have dinner! And some asparagus that I’d bought earlier – they go surprisingly well with fried eggs. Who would have thunk it?

All told, feeling less like a domestic Goddess than Val had given me credit for earlier (I’m not sure how growing apricots makes you into a domestic Goddess, but apparently it does), I realised I had failed to tidy the house, which I like to try to do to save my embarrassment when Maggie comes round to feed the cat. It doesn’t really work, because frankly, no amount of tidying will ever make my house as tidy as a normal, or “tidy” person’s house. And Maggie does mention this to other people at not-quite-every opportunity, so sometimes I think, the hell with it, it’s staying messy. I posted a Facebook status message saying that I was not a domestic Goddess, I was in fact, an actual goddess, because I have a book of essays entitled “Messiness is next to Goddessness”, that a thoughtful and loving friend once bought me. Then I went to bed. At one thirty. Oops. Ignoring Sal’s message on my first ever post.

So, amazingly, I didn’t actually get up and go swimming at 7:30. Instead, I listened to my poor, abused body until half eight, made a second (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt at packing, and tidied the kitchen. I was still trying to find my camping towel at 9:30. “Shit, taxi” I probably vocalised, and called one. “About ten minutes, love, alright?” they said. They always say this, and always turn up in seconds, hence my desire to be ready before I call. They didn’t. It was about ten minutes. In one sense, I can’t blame them, because I used all of those minutes to throw more stuff at my bag. I missed the train. I missed swimming. I dropped the bag on my foot. It hurt.

The concern about being too busy doesn’t end there, however: I’m on my way to a(nother) hen party, where we are “glamping” at a festival called “Rewind”. The Hen, my lovely friend Susie, wishes us to dress as smurfs. You can go off people. Now, I (possibly) have packed my running stuff, and in a fit of optimism, also my swimming stuff – there is a pool in Perth, I checked. I could run there from Scone. At what point, however, I think I am going to actually do this, I do not honestly know. Although on the bright side, I should easily be able to fulfil Sal’s request to run up some hills, in Scotland, which is well-known for its hills. One thing I do know though, I’m not going to be very popular in the yurt if I don’t find a shower. I accidentally smelled my running stuff the other day, if I’d left it any longer before washing it, it might have started going running by itself. There’s an idea. I wonder if I could get it to wear the garmin?