So, here I am, on a late Friday afternoon the day before another 5km parkrun, and not far from another Sunday Social trail run, and once again, I’m thinking “I’ve not been running. What was I thinking? What’s going to happen?!” – the difference is, this time I’ve decided I’m not allowing the negative thoughts. The “it’s going to be awful” thoughts tend to fulfil something known in some psychology circles as Coué’s Law: where the imagination and conscious will are in conflict, the imagination will win out every time. As in, when you imagine the worst, there’s a very strong chance it will happen. The more I think of a run going badly, the more likely on the day no matter how loudly I TELL myself “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this”, the imagination has already made its mind up, and the run will become awful. And so, I choose to try and change that – I’m running at Tollcross parkrun over at Glasgow, which is a challenging course with 10 hills in the 5km route, that I have described before as “ridiculously difficult”, all the while not admitting that I have actually completed the course about 5 times now. So, it’s not impossible, and I can get round it without death occurring! So why do I say it will be awful? Why not look more positively towards it?

Admittedly, I’ve not been training. Like, at all. I’ve not felt great recently, emotionally to a small extent, but mostly I’ve had a cold and sore throat which had knocked my energy levels. I went to the gym on Wednesday morning before work, doing some treadmill intervals, and things like clean and press lifts, chest press, Bosu burpees, etc - but I’ll be honest, I worked out at probably around 60% effort, and spent the rest of the day downing lemsip like it was the elixir of life. So, no running. I’ve been trying to start being more active in general, though, and have been wearing a pedometer (the fitbit zip) for two weeks now – actually, I’m loving it!! It’s pushing me to make those conscious decisions I’ve been finding tough before, like taking the stairs at work (I work on the 3rd floor) or leaving the car at home in the drizzly rain, and walking the mile to the office. It helps that, in this enlightened era of 2014, I’ve finally discovered audiobooks. Yes, I know… I don’t claim to be a trendsetter, you know. I was at least 3 years late to facebook, for example… and even though I blogged ‘back in the day’, I sometimes growl at “change” like an old woman in the wilderness scrubbing her clothes against rocks in the stream and lighting a gas lamp to take to bed. However – audiobooks!! They make me want to do more walking, because I download them onto my phone and have set the rule that I can only listen to them when I’m walking, or on the treadmill, and then I get caught up in the story, and take a longer route home! :-) When I run outside (which will happen… eventually…) I have my cheesy Disney and 80s/90s dance music compilation. It’s full of wondrous upbeat tunes to keep me smiling at just those times when I would prefer to set my face to its permafrown setting. “Almost There” from The Princess and The Frog being a current favourite. ...I digress. (But the picture shows a small section of the alphabetical playlist. I have no shame.)

I’ve finally managed to shake the headcold, and as long as I get a good night’s sleep tonight, I reckon I’ll be back at full fitness tomorrow, for the run. Or, rather, as full as my fitness is these days. I know I shouldn’t make comparisons, but I can’t help but look at where I am now, compared to where I was this time last year (I’m a lot heavier now, can fit into a lot less of my running kit, I'm a lot slower, a lot less confident, and with a lot less miles under my belt), and feeling a bit down. It’s dangerous to do that, though, as really I just have to focus on where I am NOW, and the journey I need to undertake. So, shake off the shackles of self-comparison and self-criticism, and make decisions not for the Sarah of here-and-now, but for the Sarah of the future. (In a non-scifi sounding way.)

On Monday, I took the day off work, and despite feeling under the weather, I knew I needed to get a bit of exercise – so I drove to Chatelherault county park, to walk the trail loop that we run on the Sunday Social. I’m nervous about Sunday, but I wanted to get out on the trail I’ve not ran on for such a long time, and remind myself… oh, I don’t know, this is going to sound a bit weird, but remind myself how the trail moves beneath my feet. Not, like, literally wobbling or anything like that – but the undulations, the hills, the different surfaces etc. I set off on the main loop, but after a couple of the smaller hills at the beginning I was actually finding it tough. My breathing was heavier, a combination of being unfit and having a headcold, and I was walking slowly. I changed my mind at the point where the route diverges, and for the first time I took the right turn for the ‘short’ loop that the others run straight after the main loop, not knowing what to expect. It starts with a lot (a LOT) of steps down to the river – and as I walked down, I decided to try and stick to a routine of 10 steps leading on my right foot, changing to 10 steps leading on my left. That’s bizarrely difficult to do! I know, though, from gym work over the years that my left side muscles are weaker than my right, so I’m aiming to work on that – and the walk down the steps went well. I had my audiobook playing, and lost track of the story on the steps, simply because I was concentrating on changing my lead leg! So I rewound it a little, and had a lovely walk along the riverbank. Then the trail starts to go upwards, on a long steady steep-ish climb to get back to the visitor centre – I slowed down, admired the scenery, and tried to take slower, deeper breaths, with my sore throat meaning that was a little tough at times. I was pleased to get back to the car, but a little concerned about how the run will go on Sunday. I think maybe I’ll just do the smaller loop, but with running – once again, I’ll aim to mix up the lead leg on the steps down, too.

Anyway. There’s a lot going on in my head at the moment, but generally speaking things are starting to slowly click into place. I had a really motivating time at the Fling ultramarathon last weekend (you’ll have probably guessed, from the blog post on it!!) and am turning my mind now to think forward to crewing Amanda Hamilton’s WHW race, and – excitingly – it’s also looking like I’ll be crewing James Stewart for his Glenmore 24 race in September. Then, my own races will be upon me. I have to be ready for them… I will be ready for them. And to that end, I’ll start with a good run at Tollcross tomorrow, and a mentally (if not physically) strong trail run on Sunday. And a swim. And lots and lots of cake. No, wait, just a small bit of cake… well, it’s only polite, isn’t it?