Week 12: Keeping It Fresh

Week 12's post took me a little longer than usual to smash out because of how intensely psychotic my work life is at the moment. Apologies!

It also doesn't help when Blogger doesn't do such a great job with syncing their mobile app to their blog sites because at some point this week I had already written this blog via the app and at some point it magically disappeared. Cry.

So Week 12 for me was a struggle in many aspects of my life.

Trying to keep up with the ever life threatening balance act of work/run/live-my-fucking-life was a challenge and with a lack in motivation, trying to keep my routine new and interesting was like trying to keep a raw fish fresh in direct Adelaide summer sunlight.

However, Rhi and I stubbornly persevered and still managed to mostly complete our routine this week.

Last week, I had mapped out a run for Rhi and I to complete that should officially put us over the 5km mark, and since we never got a chance to run it on Friday, we decided to go for it on Tuesday morning.

I was nervous. Like I was going for an interview. Or a first day at work. Or a first date.

I wanted to finish this course so badly and I still didn't know if I could do it.

And I was also aware that I still don't know my body well enough to know whether any given day will result in a good run or a bad run.

So I might do really well and feel great. Or I could feel great and 5mins into the run, hit a wall and want to die the entire way.

So with buzzing nerves, Rhi and I set out down past the zoo and up around to the weir.

As we were coming back up and around down the home stretch I realised that we were actually going to make it.

I was striding along, barely puffing, grinning my head off, literally saying "Dude, we're gonna make it!".

Rhi probably hated me at that moment.

We were both keeping stride, and Rhi looked fine but you can't always know if someone is struggling, and as I demonstrated on Friday, if you are struggling and noone else is, you can feel completely justified in wanting to murder everyone.

Oblivious to whether or not my murder was being plotted, I couldnt help but feeling absolutely extatic. We were still about 500mtres away from the finish and I felt like we were flying. Don't do drugs, kids.

About 100metres out we both started to speed up. 50mtres out and we started to sprint.

Giggling like mad hatters we both put everything we had into that last 20 metres to get across that finish line and after a traditional sweaty high five we both stood grinning at everything because we had finally done it! 5.5km! We had finally completed the big 5!

That was great run.

And I don’t know what it is about finishing a run with a sprint, but I get such a rush of adrenaline that I feel like I could do anything at that point.

That feeling on the home stretch where I felt completely in tune with my body, my breathing and my stride, is how I imagine people becoming addicted to this. That feeling is worth the 5am starts, and the hurting I did to get here.

Yeah I know, to some people 5km is nothing. To me, it felt like fucking Everest. And I had just scaled it.

Even though the run was a success, Rhi and I were still struggling to feel excited about our cross-training, so to try and keep it interesting, we decided that on Wednesday we would go down to the beach and do some deep water running between the jettys.

As per usual, I completely underestimated how difficult that might be and even thought to myself that I was probably cheating in such an easy activity. Idiot.

By the time we got to the beach after work, we realised that we had probably under estimated a lot of things.

Like how windy it was.

Like how big the swell was.

Like the fact that there was a known storm off the coast which meant that the ocean was a lovely big churn up of seaweed, sand and God-knows-what-else in the murky water.

Too stubborn for our own good, we laughed off the circumstances, got changed and made our way down to the water.

We realised that we needed to be out past the sand bar in order to get to a challenging depth, and because of where the tide was, that meant that we had to walk right where the majority of the seaweed laid on the ocean floor. Not that we could see it.

Now, I know some people might think it stupid but I have some serious trust issues with seaweed every since I was a kid and got bitten by something that was hiding it in.

So, trying not to drown in the swell, or think about the recent shark sightings, nervously placing feet and screaming like we were being murdered every time we were attacked by a sneaky patch of seaweed, Rhi and I cautiously began our way through the water.

After about 20mins of this, I finally started to relax enough to begin enjoying myself.

About 35mins in and we hadn’t even made the half way mark between jetties. Even with the tide in our favour, we were barely moving.

The easy 3km return trip was beginning to look like Everest all over again.

We kept on and eventually was able to have our very own Baywatch moment as we sprinted through the water to touch the jetty before we turned around and started to make our way back.

Immediately I realised that regardless of the difficulty so far, the incoming tide coming in on an angle to the shore had actually been working in our favour. So as soon as we turned around, and tried to wade back out to chest height, we had to not only battle the swell head on, but as the tide had come in over the sand bar, the waves were so high, we spent more time treading water on the spot than wading through it and realised we were barely moving, so we went into the shallows and decided to wade back at a decent pace to keep our heart rates up.

Up until that point, we had been working our thighs and upper body tying to pull ourselves through the water. When we got into the shallows, my calves began to burn like they were on fire.

A good all round body workout really.

When we got back to our cars, I was so done on so many levels. There is something about the ocean that just strips energy from you on a cellular level.

Lessons learned: take water with you, even in the water. Look at the weather charts for wind and swell before an ocean activity. Body Glide is life: Chafing is a bitch at the best of times; chafing with sea, salt and sand is hell on earth.

Thursday’s full-body-floor-workout turned into a Thursday night sook fest of movies on the couch.

Friday morning I had a text from Rhi saying she didn’t feel well, so in my clear headed state, I decided I would sleep in for a little longer and then run around the burbs before work.

I obviously slept in way too late and barely made it into the city in time for work. Because, duh.

After work Friday, I had booked Chris and I a hotel down at Glenelg to celebrate his birthday in the coming week so we headed down to the Bay in the evening and were lucky enough to be upgraded to a top floor suite. Win!

Chocolate and wine aside, I think I made good nutrition choices, we had a late night in the spa and watching movies and then had breakfast in the restaurant in the morning.

I had previously organised a special activity for Chris on Saturday but due to the offshore storm finally reaching us the activity was postponed to the following weekend, so we settled for stopping off at the Aquatic Centre on the way home for some fun exercise.

But exercise I mean doing dives and bombs in the deep pool followed by sweating it out in the steam room and half an hour in the spa. So worth it.

I had invited Rhi up to mine on Sunday to run with me around my burb track, but Rhi’s poor body was still recovering from her adventures of Schutzenfest the day before so I headed out on my own.

I had amended my usual burb track to make it 5km and was looking forward to smashing it.

As per usual, I spent the first 10mins hating life and struggling like I have not been training for this for the last 3 months so I stopped to walk for about 20 paces.

After the short rest, I felt completely recovered, and when I got back into my run, my body knew what to do and took me all the way home no trouble.

It’s like I needed to hate life, give up, give myself a pep talk, and then I was fine to keep going forever. Alright, weirdo.

I have noticed this happening a lot.

I did a little article stalking, and have found quite a few write-ups about that first 7-10 mins.

Some advice that I will definitely keep with me is from an article written by Stephanie Bruce for Women's Running Magazine, which delves into the mental motivation behind the first 7 mins of your run.

The theory is, if you can get past that first 7 mins of sluggish regret, then you would have run far enough from home to award yourself some self-gratitude for your heroic efforts and will have the will have the willpower to finish your run to the end.

I definitely relate to this, and have noticed a pattern in all my runs, where I start off slow and steady until my body finds it’s rhythm, and then I am generally end up feeling energised and strong right until the finish. Woo!

It is moments like these (that you need minties?) that I can really appreciate how far I have come.

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