Reconnection

Reconnect. verb - to make you feel or understand something that you had stopped feeling or understanding.
Where my headspace has been of late can be guessed by the length of time since I last blogged. It's not been a great year - as I move now towards the 1 year anniversary of my first getting plantar fasciitis in about 2 weeks' time,
and it still hasn't gone, despite me trying just about EVERY "miracle cure" I've been told about, and throwing a lot of money at it. I've hardly ran at all, in 12 months, and all the fitness and speed gains I made last year are history. The problem is probably exacerbated by my weight gain, and my thought processes. I'm not mentally strong enough to deal with the injury coming at such a key time in my mental and physical development, and I crumbled. I've tried a number of times (as evidenced by the occasional blog post on the subject) to rebuild myself around the injury, but it got harder and harder. But with London Marathon only 7 months away (and no room left for deferring again), I realised things had to change. And that starts with mindset.

A couple of months ago I spoke to Shaun, my personal trainer, about what I could do differently, and we landed on the subject of food. It was time for me to make some big changes - which took a lot of soul-seeking, as it's the one area I've been most defiant about for a very long time. I shifted my eating to a plan provided by Shaun, and slowly but surely, the weight began to fall. Somewhat disastrously-timed, however, a family cruise holiday was booked with short notice - and I found myself on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic surrounded by food. All-inclusive, 24/7, delicious food. It was absolutely the wrong timing for me, and yes, for various reasons, I ended up throwing careful decision-making overboard, disconnecting the thought processes I'd been developing, and over 2 weeks I gained back 4lbs.

While I was away, I had a bit of thinking time, and the ability to switch my mind off from everyday worries and hassles that have crowded my brain for a while (don't talk to me about insurance claims...), and more importantly, the 'how did I get here, and how do I get back to where I was headed before?' question. I realised in the process that I hard largely switched off from the whole running community, and my long-held passion for all things ultra-running (I'm a groupie, not an ultrarunner) had been packed away in a dark cupboard somewhere. It was almost like it emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, when I got home and decided to see what was going on, locally, and further afield. Speedgoat Karl smashing the AT, James Stewart and Neil MacNicol blowing the Tooting Bec 24hr track race out of the water (James running over 160 miles, and taking himself to 7th in the all-time British 24 hour record list), Glencoe Skyline bringing more big performances to Scotland (with Jasmin Paris building on an incredible year I should have been more up-to-date with, since I used to be obsessed with the BGR), and so on... I haven't volunteered as a marshal since Clyde Stride (I owe a blog about that, of course), and missed Glenmore 24 because of the cruise. Glenmore has been a huge part of my year for the past 3 years, so it felt disconcerting to be missing it, especially as I'd previously offered to crew for Des and Scott, and had to go back on my word. I don't think I was much missed, but that's twice this year I've withdrawn a crewing offer, and adds to the races I've pulled back from volunteering or spectating at (I wasn't at Devil o' the Highlands or John Lucas 50 this year, for example, and didn't go spectate at Strathearn Marathon as I have in the past - hell, I've not even volunteered at parkun!), or even following those little electronic tracking dots online for races around the world. I disconnected, all the while feeling like it was other people disconnecting from me. I hadn't just disconnected from the community, I'd disconnected from myself.

So. The holiday finished. I got back on track with my new eating plan, and I tuned back in to what my friends and acquaintances were doing. I started looking at race results again (brilliant run from Craig Reid to get on the Scottish half marathon podium - about time he was able to get back into the form he deserves to be in!), and reading people's blog posts. And I started focussing on what I was achieving in the gym, rather than what I wasn't. I bench pressed 32.5kgs for 5 reps yesterday - it wasn't too long ago at all that my 1 rep max was 30kgs, and had it not been for Shaun, I'd not have pushed myself to that result yesterday. More progress will (WILL!) follow. A rowing intervals session on Friday surprised me with how I did, but left me musing all day on the subject of self-limiting beliefs, which set cogs a-grinding. And.... and I ran. I really did. I went out on Friday afternoon, and plodded a very slow and challenging set of intervals: run 2 minute, walk 1 minute, for 9 sets. Those 27 minutes were harder than I'd imagined they would be, and my running pace was slower than 12 min/mile pace, significantly unfit, red-faced and slow, but I did it - and my foot didn't hurt. It threw my mind backwards a year to remembering what it felt like when I was achieving all that progress in training. It was a victory. ...until the next day, when my plantar fasciitis flared with the previous day's exertions, and reminded me that it was going nowhere. I won't let it stop me - I can't let it stop me - but I have to be sensible too. I said the other day it's time to reconnect, and I mean that in the widest possible sense. So, Blog Readers, I'm back.