An Absence Explained

It has been a very long time since I wrote anything - so I had better explain:

Holidays are bad for your health!

At the end of February I had a short break in Mallorca, to gather a few rays of sunshine and so lighten a dreary English winter. It worked perfectly: the sky was blue, the sea was clear and the mountains were beautiful. All was good. Unfortunately as soon as I came back I started coughing, my chest felt heavy and I felt as if I was breathing through a blanket. Not good. Even worse the infection dragged on and on for weeks. Even when the cough went I was left feeling week and feeble.

For two months I have not only not run I have not done anything apart from get through each day. The thought of writing about running felt like a cruel joke - so I didn't.

But now things are looking up. I have run for 30min (quite slowly it must be admitted) and think things will soon get back to normal - which, of course, includes blogging

P.S. The picture is of the studio of Joan Miro, who lived and worked in Mallorca in his later years. I have posted it, not only because I think it is rather fine, but because it was built at the same time (1955) as the New Town of Hemel Hempstead was being developed. None of our buildings from the period look anywhere near as stylish (we specialised in a rather earnest plainness) . I know, I know - the quality of the light makes an enormous difference and a one-off building designed by an architect for his friend is bound to be more distinctive than town development in Hertfordshire but even so ...

2011 Streak Day 274 (Tues Oct 4th): Rubbish

2011 Streak Day 274 (Tues Oct 4^th):Walk 1 mile, Time 20min, Weather - not as sunny but still warm but still pleasant

How quickly the seasons turn. A couple of weeks before and these leaves were red and vibrant on the wall, now they are curled and dead on the ground.

How quickly my sense of well being can change as well. Yesterday morning I was enjoying the sun and feeling content but a day later all is horrible. The reaction to the wasp sting continued, and despite taking anti histamine the lip got even fatter during the night. So today's exercise was the merest minimum - a short walk to the doctors. He prescribed some steroids and very gradually the swelling started to go down.

Everything will be OK, the poison will leave the system but the process takes a little time and whilst it is happening I feel rubbish

2011 Streak Day 251 (Sun Sept 11th): Make or break

2011 Streak Day 251 (Sun Sept 11^th): Run 4.25 miles Time 40min Weather grey but with patches of blue sky and scudding clouds 

This was make or break Sunday. 

The plan has been to run the Folkestone Half Marathon on 25^th Sept - two weeks away, but with feeling unwell and not having run for two weeks that was looking problematic. If I was recovered enough to survive a decent length run, then residual fitness from the summer should be OK and I would be able to tailor a programme to be able to get round. The question was if?

The first part of the run seemed fine. I hit a steady rhythm and kept going but very quickly I realised there was no power in the legs - no push at all.  The further I went the weaker I felt. I managed to keep going for 4 miles because the route was flat (by the canal) and I adopted a technique of just lifting my legs up, the equivalent of twiddling on a bike. Even so I had to stop a couple of times.

Not too good but not completely without hope. When I finished I was not 100% sure Folkestone was a lost cause but when I got home I knew it was. I completely flaked-out and spent the rest of the day lolling around feeling rubbish. A flat, easy 4 miles had done for me. There was no chance I would be able to do 13 a few days later.

Sadness washed over me because I had really wanted to do the race and meet-up with some wonderful bloggers who, so far, I have only ever talked to on-line. Bah!

But it is my constant refrain about running: it forces you to be honest about your abilities as you can only do what you can do. I knew I couldn't do a half marathon.

P.S. For the first time there is continuity in pictures. The photo in the last post was of a canal bridge. This is looking back towards where I was when I took that photo.

2011 Streak 243 (Saturday Sept 3rd): Beginnings

2011 Streak 243 (Saturday Sept 3^rd):Walk 2 miles, Time - 45min,  Weather - strange split sky banks of gunmetal grey cloud and blue sky

Short slow walk around Old Town and park. This is a very difficult time. Feeling weak but trying to carry on is hard work as I arrive home exhausted. At the moment the days are a mixture of: rest, a little activity, rest. All is hazy.

However being in the park ion a Saturday is a good diversion. Watching other people circulating, and enjoying themselves, lifts ones own spirits. When you feel ill it is very easy to direct all your attention inwards but there is stimulation in the world around  and this can make you feel better.

Walking along the footpath I glimpsed a wedding party assembling for photographs outside St Mary's church. Weddings always represent hope and the beginning of something. I like beginnings. 

I could do with one rich now.  I need to get back into training and start making plans again but at the moment that seems a strange and distant idea.

2011 Streak Day 237 (Friday Aug 26th): Feebleness ascending

2011 Streak Day 237 (Friday Aug 26th): Walk - 1 mile, Time - 20min, Weather - grey

It cannot have escaped the notice of any eagled eyed reader that I have fallen behind in my blogging and am writing this in retrospect, trying to catch up. Partly this is because the last 3 or 4 weeks have been difficult.

From the last couple of posts you will have noticed that things had not been going well. The run on Tuesday had been a failure - something that should have been routine became impossible; Wednesday’s walk had been hard with my mind fuzzily elsewhere; and on Thursday I just watched a cat.

On Friday it became clear that I was not well. I had a cough, headache, my chest that felt it was being squeezed, and my legs felt watery weak.

So what about the Streak? The condition is that I have to get out of the house everyday and do something for 365 days. What to do?

For some stupid reason I did not want to give it up. As I wasn’t completely incapacitated I decided to keep going as best I could, doing the minimum. It would be not very much but at least it would be something.

I don’t know whether that was very smart because the infection dragged on and all I did was survive. They were days of emptiness with nothing much to report. I will thus whisk through the upcoming days with very brief posts marking the days and showing I kept going but little more.

For many of those days all I did was walk to the park at the bottom of my road and walk back again. On Day 237 the fair was still there to give me some extra colour.

Taking Things For Granted

I have been away visiting relatives and met-up with a brother-in-law who has spinal muscular atrophy, a degenerative illness that affects the link between the brain and nerve fibres so that instructions cannot be passed to the muscles. The muscles cannot be used and thus atrophy.

He can walk a short distance, on the flat, by hauling himself with the aid of stick but cannot negotiate even the smallest of steps and he can only get down stairs by sitting and then bumping himself down, like an infant. Over the past six months his condition has worsened considerably and it is very distressing because he no longer trusts himself to go out by alone and feels himself a prisoner, someone who has been robbed of independence. Everything is made much worse by depression.

We probably made matters worse by trying to be helpful - suggesting place he could go with good disabled facilities and mentioning someone with his disease who gone to the Arctic to raise money and awareness. The first topic was not too bad but the second was a mistake as his shoulders visibly sagged. Such tales of adventure were demoralising rather than inspiring.

“There are all these people who seem to be able to do all these things ......” He trailed off lost in thought about his inability to get out of the house, feeling defeated all ways round. Not only did he have his own difficulties there was the thought of other people coping with more vigour and adventurousness. It is bad enough being ill without taking on extra guilt for not doing enough.

I said something vague like 'he could only do what he could do and he should no pay attention to the achievements of others' but it sounded a bit woolly and well-meaning. I wanted to make feel a bit more real by relating it to running where I know there are people capable of times I can barely imagine and there are all sorts of people I cannot get near. But I can run a race at my own pace and be satisfied or disgruntled according to that standards. There are always little markers I can use to judge how well I am doing, little things that can be achieved. I wanted to say this but I didn't because I was self concious about talking about running to someone losing the use of their legs. It did not seem like a brilliant topic of conversation. I also did not want to talk about myself.

I hate to admit it on this blog but there are times when running just seems like a diversion; it doesn't seem that important. But having said that I went for a nice easy 10k today and felt that warm glow of satisfaction. Running still feels like a good thing to do. However I did spend some of the time thinking about how messages are sent to the muscles and how we control all the adjustments needed to keep our balance and move forward. There is no way I could make any sense of it.

How grateful I am to be able to take such movement for granted.

For Everything There is a Season

I have not posted for a month for the simple reason that I have not run for a month. Partly this was illness - a marathon is no cure for infection and for two weeks after the race I felt really rough with coughing, snuffling and general weariness. Since then I have felt the need for a fallow period - as if my body said that it wanted some comfort and cosseting, rest and refuelling. I therefore decided to treat November as off-season. Whether this is a good or a bad thing I do not know - I will probably find out when I start running again and find out how much I need to build back up.

I hope however the rest will help this ageing body rebuild and repair niggles and strains. I am very conscious that my body lacks the recovery it used to have. Injuries go on for longer and anything to do with ligaments or tendons take forever. So a month out might sort that groin twinge and an ache in the right buttock - who knows. Both of them were/are nothing serious, just a minor discomforts, but a clean sheet would be nice.

The other reason for a break is the idea of periodisation - having some sort of seasonal rhythm of build and release - so that things are not always at the same level of intensity. However it means more than just having the occasional break. I will have to sit down and work out a plan with different patterns of activity.

I am convinced that for the past couple of years I have not been varying things enough. It is too comfortable to run at a an easy pace. Although this is good and gives the bulk of the physical and imaginative nourishment of running it is one dimensional and does not help with elasticity, agility, balance or upper-body muscle tone. So it is time for a rethink.

At the moment I haven't quite thunk those thoughts. The plan at the moment is a bit vague. December will be an easing back in month - gentle steady, much as before. The new year will be when the experimentation starts. Certainly it will involve more cycling, some weights and an attempt to make "speed" sessions mean more than just a little bit faster than normal. But at the moment I know no more.

I need to do some reading to see if I an pick up any ideas and rediscover the attitude of just trying things. When George Sheehan said that 'you are an experiment of one' the important word was experiment. I think that recently I may have lost sight of that.