Text to R this morning:
I don’t want to go run in this freezing cold.
I just want too snuggle up with the warm bachcha, hot chocolate, hot samosas and watch Gilmore girls.
After a good interval running session in freezing cold:
I’m the next Kipchoge. I’m the new Mary Kitane. I can beat Shelly Ann Fraser Price. David Rudisha is me. Mo Farah wants to be me!
Hormones and all that stuff … :)
Woke up before 7. Took care of the boy’s morning business. Meditated. Worked. Stretched. Practiced French. Ran. Stretched. Now working again.
The dark clouds arrived—Boris returned as PM, winning a big majority, winning a mandate for more lies and bluster for all future elections.
The silver lining faded—Corbyn refused to step down, instead asking for a period of ‘introspection’, and only promising a vague ‘will not lead the party in next election.’ Labour lost 61 seats across the country, and managed to win just one from another party. Labour has now lost two elections in a row under him; elections that any other decent leader would have won comfortably. Still, the ditherer-in-chief says he wants to introspect for a few months to figure out what went wrong!
Then the interesting stuff began.
I published my second Android app: Accelereader for Instapaper. It was in beta for a few weeks, but went into public release earlier this week. It’s always scary publishing publicly, however small the audience may be.
Then I did something even scarier—I decided on the Hanson method for training for the Paris marathon. Even the beginner program has 6 days of running most weeks; I struggle to run 5 days consistently. The beginner program also has almost two months of running 80-90 km per week. My weekly cadence has only rarely been above 50 km. It involves multiple faster-than-race-pace 10-mile tempo runs, and interval sessions that go on longer than my current long weekend runs. I’ll come out of this training season at the top of my running fitness, or broken—mentally and physically.
Not everything is scary. I made progress with the pull-ups. Today I did two full ones. Twice. Last week I was celebrating almost completing one. A few weeks ago I couldn’t even do a quarter. I also do 4-6 chin-ups a couple of times a day, up from just 1-2 a few weeks ago. (Yes, chin-ups and pull-ups are different)
I’ve also made progress with weight loss (despite the muscle gain from pull-ups and running). Yesterday, I weighed-in at 76.2Kg, a nearly 5-year low, and within hitting distance of the goal weight.
And finally, the best bit: I’ve started meditating again. I’m on a 15-day streak, sometimes twice a day, and finally getting back to being able to focus for a few minutes unbroken. If nothing else survives from this period post (I really hope the current government and opposition leadership don’t), I hope at least this will.
Ran.
Showered and shaved.
Got to London way before 10am.
Optimistic scenario achieved!
Achievement of the day: I almost completed one full pull-up starting from arms fully extended.
(I can do a couple starting with arms part bent)
I’ve got the upper body strength of an infant, so this is a huge achievement!
I hadn’t seen anyone from my old triathlon club—Pheonix Triathlon—in over six months. In the last week, I ran into three of them! The cooler weather and beautiful autumn colours must have drawn the Phoenixes out of hibernation (aka the gym :) )
Chewie and I met Kate Fargus last Sunday at the far end of Sandy lane. I didn’t recognise her, but she called out to say hello to Chewie. It took me a few minutes (after I left her) to remember her first name. I only remembered her last name after Koldo helped me out later in the week.
Saw Graham French on Wednesday as he flew down the hill while we were running uphill on the trail home from Sandy lane. He lives in my part of town, so it wasn’t much of a surprise to see him running our trails.
We met Koldo Loidi, one of the friendliest Phoenixers, on our backyard gravel path during Friday’s run. It was about 5°C and he was running in a thin tee and shorts; I was clad in my new full-sleeve running jacket. He admired Chewie, and suggested catching up in town sometime. It was his 50th birthday that day, and he seemed to be enjoying it out on the beautiful trails.
Hope to catch some more of the friendlier Phoenixers out on the trails as I increase the miles over winter.
Completed some good, fairly complicated work yesterday evening and this morning.
Weight is down to 77.1 Kg. I haven’t been lower than this since early 2015.
Someone responded to my appeal for help just as I was losing hope that they remembered me.
And I’m about to head out for a run.
I’m happpy.
Weight is down. At 77.4 Kg, it’s the lowest it’s been since December 2017, and within touching distance of the all time grown-up low in early 2015.
I’m running again. 5 consecutive days after 3 dreary runs in 3 weeks.
I’m working. It’s hard and happy work. Just the kind that drives me crazy yet leaves me happy.
I’m reading. I’ve run out of things to watch on TV so have been happily spending evenings reading in bed.
The boy is sleeping with me again. He comes and snuggles up while I’m reading. He even forced R to open the doors to come to me last night. And again this morning.
Autumn is at its most beautiful. I get to enjoy it everyday on my runs.
I’m listening to music that I like.
And, it’s sunny today. People outside northern Europe won’t understand how valuable is a sunny November morning :)
I’ve run at least 100 km every month this year. I want to keep this streak going.
After Sunday’s run, my total for October is ~82 km. I needed 18 km in four days. It seemed like four days of easy 5K runs would do it.
I skipped the run yesterday. I claimed sore muscles as the excuse. Then it appeared like three days of 6K runs would do it.
I’m skipping the run today too. Work load and gloomy skies are my excuse today. Now I need to run two consecutive 10Ks in next two days.
Unless I skip tomorrow’s run too, and end up having to run a half marathon on Thursday 😕