Feel the swoosh

My running gets lost under the barrage of life - and an epic swim

Taking a selfie while running is not easy

This was one of those weeks where life got in the way of training (end-of-year school events, birthdays, a trip to Wimbledon - I’m not complaining). Before I knew it, it was Sunday already and I’d only run once all week. With two weeks left until lift-off on the Big Ireland Run, that was far from ideal, but I’m fully resigned now to the fact that I’ll be starting my journey with suboptimal fitness levels.

Or, as my brother put it this week: “How are you going to run around Ireland with that big belly?”

Hmmm.

At least the one run I did manage was a big one: 22 miles from Totnes, down one side of the River Dart to Dartmouth, then across on the ferry and back home along the river on the other side. It was a lovely route, on election day, past polling stations in sleepy village halls, under a hot sun, up and down some dramatically steep hills, across fields where the footpath had disappeared under tangles of crops, past pink thatched cottages.

I really do live in picture-postcard England, I have to say, and I’ve enjoyed exploring my local area on my long runs over the last few weeks. But like on my other recent long runs, I struggled again over the last few miles and I got home totally wiped out and wondering how I’m ever going to manage all those back-to-back long days. Starting in just two weeks. Yikes.

I was struggling so much that I stopped my watch a mile before home so that I could slow walk the last bit without the pressure of Judge Strava watching on. It felt such a relief to stop the clock. Once the Ireland run starts, I’m going to have to fully surrender myself to slow splits, walking pace, meanderings, stopping. Strava be damned. I don’t care what it thinks, I’ll be taking my sweet time. I can do that, right? I’m not a slave?

As if to prove it, I stopped my run yesterday (my second run of the week) with 4.99 miles showing on my watch. Take that, Strava! You can’t take me down, I’m a free man!