This blog is not going to turn into the tales of a novice runner, but it feels like it is all that is going on in my life at the moment. If I am not actually running; which to be honest only takes a bit over an hour a day, then I am talking about it, reading about it and thinking about it… when I am trying to sleep! The later getting me stressed out; so that I have to read even more about running to answer questions…or text people at unsuitable hours to bug them about half-marathon queries. I am blaming this stress on two things; 1. My copy of RW magazine has not yet arrived in the post and reading on-line is just not the same! 2. One of my running buddies has recently left the country…think she had enough of my running stress…so that makes two of us running next weekend.
My buddy and I went on our usual 12km mid-week run on Thursday…and things didn’t go so well! I think I was having a panic attack; I couldn’t breathe, thought I was going to be sick, then just tried to hold back the tears, (this is actually NOT what I normally feel like when exercising!!). Ah- more to stress about…! “What is the worst that can happen? Its not like we can drown”, my buddy states, rightly so. Well, my nerves tell me, a lot!
Right, calm down; remember to relax your shoulders and speak positively to your buddy , “oh, look at the beautiful view of Kampala from the top of Kololo hills…oh, mind out for the dead dog thing…”-you get the picture! We are actually both hilarious ‘runners’ - this half being the first for both of us. Hilarious in the fact that we are pretty much clueless in what we are doing. (I am actually in stitches of laughter as I write this!) Neither of us (up until yesterday) had a watch-we did try to figure-out how long we had been running by looking at the sun…that didn’t go so well, so we would have to plan our route to pass a clock tower in a market town! Anyhow, this morning we did our last long run before the big day…new $10 watch on wrist, newly found energy sweets at hand; we chatted, we paced ourselves, we shouted our mantras and we ran REALLY well! Jinja, here we come!!
