Rest to run, run to rest

The past few weeks have been just a little bit crazy. I went a trip to Pembrokeshire, Wales (I will do a separate post about our Welsh trip), moved out of one house and into another, and ran the Leeds 10km. The process of moving house has had a huge effect on me, spending hours cleaning, shifting stuff, driving forwards and backwards between Cheshire and Yorkshire with my tiny little Citroen C1 crammed full, and packing things away has left me feeling pretty shattered.

I went to the gym once last week with Ant (my new housemate and boyfriend for those of you who don’t know) and I struggled. My body was simply fatigued, tired out from all the excitement of moving. After going to the gym I realised I hadn’t actually done anything non-house related for a whole week and definitely hadn’t done anything to relax or just chill out.

After I dropped Ant at work and did two hours of cleaning I decided that enough was enough and I needed to stop ‘doing’. I had developed a bit of a cold because my immune system just hadn’t been running at capacity because I wasn’t giving myself any opportunity to recover (I am almost over it now). I made myself all of the food that I wanted, veggies, pasta and salmon, watched about five episodes of ‘It’s always sunny in Philadelphia’, tried to write a blog post but my brain was too mushy to cooperate, and watched some You Tube vlogs instead. During Saturdays’ busy activities I felt the benefits of my ‘rest night’.

On Saturday night, my friend Rach came up to stay over. On Sunday morning, we were up bright and early at 7.20am (too early for me in my off-term time mode) and headed down to Leeds city centre for the Jane Tomlinson Run for All 10km. We ran it in aid of Brain Tumour Research and Support across Yorkshire (BTRS), a fantastic charity that I volunteer for every week (apart from when I am stressing out in a crazy house move).

If I had thought ahead and realised how tired I would be, I would not have signed up for the run. However, after raising over £300 I couldn’t just not do it. So, with Rach and Ant’s encouragement I managed to complete the run in 58 minutes and 20 seconds without throwing up. I honestly felt terrible most of the way round, it was a very warm day and I had not had enough water before the run began. Before I ran the half-marathon back in September I was able to very comfortably run 10km in under an hour, yesterday I really struggled to finish in under an hour but that’s okay. My cardio has taken a hit in recent months and I am not as fit as I was. That doesn’t make me unfit though and it doesn’t mean I am not committed to living an active lifestyle. It is okay that I found it difficult and it isn’t embarrassing either. My friends helped me to keep going as well as the lovely volunteers on the day who handed out water and all the people who turned out to cheer us on.

The reality of running is that you have good days and bad days, good months and bad months, it doesn’t mean that you’re bad at running or not good enough to run in a race.

Em x

(My face in this photo is quite hilarious but it is also my "why did I decide to do a sprint finish, I think I might throw up" face and then we have Ant and Rach having a great old time)

(#QuadGoals - caption credits to Rach)

If you want to find out more about BTRS head to their website at: http://www.btrs.org.uk/Home