WET

I really DO try to keep up the mileage and just haul my lazy arse out of the doors regardless of the weather. After all, you might as well train when its crap weather because you never know when you are going to have to race in crap weather!

But there are times it really is a drag. I’ve been “troubled” by a wee bit of a winter cold/sore throat type thingumy since about Wednesday and it appears to have affected my mojo. I know I should be out there clocking up the miles, but all I want to do is loaf about, reading, listen to Charlie Parker albums on the old gramophone and fill my face with Mars Bars.
But…. I’ve put my name down for the Lochaber Marathon in April…times drawing in and all the crap …best get the shoes on and get there.
Yesterdays 11 mile run wasn’t too bad. Got soaked through to the bone, but I seemed to get round ok. In fact, the worst part of yesterdays run was standing in the kitchen trying to get off all the cold wet gear, with numb hands, after I got back.
Today? Well today was just horrible. The rain was worse. The wind was worse. And as for my “mojo”? Well. It appears to have gone missing in action – alongside my “will to live” and my “joie de vivre”.
I had intended to do 16 miles today. The plan was to set off towards Crowhill, then turn up by Cocklaw, Oldhamstocks and then home. Sadly by the time I got to Crowhill my enthusiasm had drained out of me. I got to the bit where I should have gone left …..I headed right and back for home. Feeling miserable, cold and slow the last thing I needed added to the mix was guilt. But that is exactly what I got - guilt. Not quite as bad as the feeling you get if you pull out of a race and get branded with that awful “DNF”, but I started to punish myself with thoughts of “quitter” and “loser”.
So.. when I got to the end of Innerwick top road, rather than turn at Primrose Cottages for home I got the head down, turned right and set off for another loop past the caravan park, along the Market Road and back through Innerwick.
Because I did one part of the route twice I ended up passing the same group of cyclists twice. Once at Crowhill, where they had all stopped while one of their number sorted a puncture and then again later on down at Innerwick where they had stopped while another one change a punctured tyre. At least I wasn't alone in my misery.
Got home wet, cold and miserable, but at least I’d managed 15. Not the 16 I had planned but a lot better than it might have been.