There is one month to go until I run in the Cardiff Half Marathon. I’m getting slightly apprehensive. This is mainly because for the last ten days I’ve had some kind of viral/cold illness. The whole family has had it so as well as being ill myself I’ve been caring for poorly children. It’s been rather exhausting and the only remedy was complete rest when I could.
Over the last few days I have felt better and it dawned on me this morning that as I was actually ok, I should really go for a run. I’d been up since 5am with baby and to be honest I really *really* didn’t feel like it. I was even tempted to go back to bed when my husband got up at 8am. However I had to go. Moping and thinking about it wasn’t going to help. To be honest I’ve found if I think about running too much and build it up I almost talk myself out of it and run badly. Kind of a reverse adrenalin effect if there is such a thing. So I gave myself a kick up the bum, husband gave me a few ‘you’ll be fine’s and I was off. I only did an easy 4 miler but it was enough to get me back in the training mindset. My legs felt fresh, obviously because I was rested but my chest did feel a bit tight at times. It was not a good run at all, which is what I expected. Hopefully I have run the cold out of my legs.
When I came home I moaned a bit to husband and I started to worry about being able to make it round the Cardiff Half course. I sat down and popped the TV on and there was the Great North Run coverage. I’d forgotten it was today. Just watching those people with all their fantastic stories was an inspiration. I realised that I made a commitment to do this Half Marathon and that’s what I’m going to do. All I’ve got to do is make it round in this, my first race in the new phase of my life. It’s my first race in a long time and the first since having my children. I just need to give myself a bit of a talking to. One month to go, plenty of time to fit in a bit more training. I can do this! I think.