No one is going to write a book about my life. That much I’m fairly certain. In fact, I’m always quite shocked that people actually read my blog.
Though I’d still write it even if people didn’t read it. I find the whole process very cathartic and it’s a great way to keep track of races, restaurants and significant events and the fine, mundane details surrounding them that I’d probably never remember otherwise. I’ve often referred to my blog when trying to remember certain things – like where was that place I went to that had that amazing cake? Or what time did I run that race two years ago? Or just being able to flick back to old posts and see how much I’ve changed, or in some cases, how I haven’t changed at all.
But it’s not ground-breaking stuff. I’m not smashing through glass ceilings with my critical thinking and diverse approach to different topics. I’m not even that great a runner. I’m middle of the pack and, worse still, injury-prone. My running is not exactly awe inspiring and I’ll never get super fast times or do a super amazing challenge (spoiler alert on my life right there, guys).
I’m not selling myself short. I’m not being pessimistic. I’m just being honest. That honesty doesn’t make me sad. And I don’t want to be famous (jeeze, what would I be famous for? I daren’t even think… some weird cake eating competition or girls vs. food event – but even at that I’m hardly remarkable to the people who genuinely do those things).
In general, I’m a very happy person. Day-to-day/hour-to-hour this obviously changes (I hate you, commute! *shakes fist*) – as it does for everyone. But when I get home at night, lock my door and get into bed, I’m happy – alone but not lonely. I don’t have any huge regrets in my life, aside from small and insignificant ones (why didn’t I start running earlier?).
I don’t regret getting married and that period of my life. We had good memories together and it helped me grow during that time. And when it ended I learned a lot about myself as a single person, rather than being part of a pair.
It was actually something my physio said to me that made me think. He said, “People underrate feeling fine”. They only come to him when they’re in pain or something’s not right. Then they only realise how incredible feeling normal and not in pain actually is. I know this well; it’s always a momentous occasion when I tell my physio that I feel fine.
This same logic applies to life. Though my life is so very average, that’s OK because I’m happy. I have no major gripes: I’m healthy, I have a loving family, a solid group of friends, I have no money issues, I enjoy my job, I don’t think I look too much like Quasimodo in the great scheme of things, I have a lovely flat and, of course, Alfie. Yes it’s average, mundane and, to a lot of people, boring but I’m happy and healthy, and that is certainly not something to take for granted.
Sometimes I think it’s important to take stock. Your stock may not be one in a million or the stuff of blockbusters, but if you’re happy and healthy, that stock is pretty damn good.
Are you above average at anything?
Would you ever want to be famous? And what for?
Perhaps a fairly personal question, but are you happy?
For the past few weeks I’ve just been going to the gym and lifting and it’s been a great break from running. Though I’m itching to get back to it now, I haven’t been going out of my mind because “omg I haven’t been running”. I’m happy to take a break and refresh my system to get the mojo juices flowing again (nice). This is is different to the old me!
The lack of self-confidence is obvious but also lack of muscle. This is why I love lifting. It’s given me a body I’m proud of. I’ve never hated my body or thought I looked bad, but seeing my body now in comparison to how it was has just validated my love for the gym. I feel better in myself and think I look better after gaining some muscle to my frame. And with that I’ve also gained confidence.
I stride into the gym knowing exactly what I’m going to do that morning. I feel confident going into the weights area, setting up the squat rack and doing my thing. And this has trickled into my life in general. At work I’m more confident, I stand taller, and with running I run stronger and feel like I can kick out that 7min/min at mile 26 of a marathon.
There is also something so satisfying and fun about lifting weights. You can focus on so many different areas. Becoming a stronger runner with form drills and increasing my strength endurance, or focusing on aesthetic goals such as sculpting my shoulders and getting a perkier bum. Or just generally increasing my overall strength – can I smash my personal best when squatting or deadlifting? There’s so much you can do. I’m never bored at the gym.
It has to be something that, first and foremost, is enjoyable. If it’s not you won’t stick to it.
This photo made me laugh so much as I literally had no idea that Jim, the photo bomber, was behind me doing that. It was only when I looked at the photo I saw. Hehe.
The cowl (or buff) was actually really nice to wear as it was quite nippy at parkrun. Winter is definitely on it’s way 🙁 I’m really not looking forward to the cold morning’s of parkrun set-up and then running in the nasty weather. Hey ho.
Not particularly consistent really and fairly slow in comparison to previous runs (25:39). But my legs felt alright post marathon (well, they would do I guess after almost two weeks off!) andI’m still trying to take things nice and slow. I want to be really motivated when I get back into proper training so I don’t want to ramp things up too quickly now. I probably won’t run a huge amount in the next few weeks if I’m honest as I also have my eye laser surgery coming up this month. (I will blog about that experience.)
From my 
It was full of halloumi, feta, olives and aubergine.
Perfection. I did get enormous food envy though as one of my friends ordered the Willy Wonka Kinda special.
I mean WOW. It looked amazing. She found it got very sickly (as you can imagine) so I was able to help her out at the end 😉 But yes, it was ridiculously sweet. She was in a sugar coma afterwards which was quite amusing (seen as how it’s usually me who ends up that way!).
I’m not massively eager to bash out a ridiculously fast time or try and beat my PB (which was still around 4 minutes faster than Chester) but I’d quite like to do another really focused training segment where I include some actual workouts, like tempos, intervals and hill sessions, rather than the very relaxed running I was doing this time around. Though mentally it was nice to run without any real pace aims or targets, I really enjoy the process of seeing my paces get faster and just feeling more confident in my running.
It’s all a bit fuzzy right now and nothing is ever set in stone for me.