My Fantazi Weekend

The Lovely 5-month-pregnant Shona came to see me this weekend on a DNP arrangement. We went straight out for a special Thai lunch with The Sister and Lovely Leah. We ate beautiful food and talked movies and theatre and then went off to see Black Swan. An amazing film - peed all over Kings Speech in my humble opinion.

I went off for my Long Run this morning. I have been worrying about it all week. I had to jump from 1hr45 to 2hrs15. I set my alarm for 8am and had a bit of muesli and fruit and set off for the first half............I spent almost all of it feeling absolutely awful from the very start........and felt anxious all the way round about how awful I was feeling - should it feel this awful? should I be feeling better?, should I slow down (impossible without getting down on all 4's and crawling)..........I stopped back at the house after 1hr30 for a drink and some more muesli and set off again feeling terrible (why didn't I prepare better and buy some energy gels???, why didn't I drink more water yesterday???, why didn't I eat more for dinner yesterday?, why am I going so slowly, how oh HOW am I EVER gonna do a marathon???????????) etc etc etc

With (the quite essential) help of Mat's running tunes and the "you can do it" ethos of My Trainer I did do it. 2 hours and 15 minutes. I did feel like I had achieved something but it was so overshadowed by the knowledge of what I still need to do in just 10 short weeks and I still felt pretty flippin' rubbish..........

...........cut to 4 hours later..................

I went to get my gait analysed at my local hard core "oh yes - I am a proper runner" running shop......

............there were loads of people in the shop and I watched as a nice young runner got his gait analysed - it looked awful - he flipped his foot out every time before he put it on the treadmill and consequently took ages to buy his shoes.................me and Shona waited very patiently and got chatting to a woman who was also waiting. We got chatting about running - she was new to it and has only just run 7km - shona proudly told her I did 22km this morning and she looked at me like I was a total pro ha ha ha. She asked me "do you enjoy it?" and without thinking I turned round and said "I LOVE it!!!!!!!!" ha ha ha ha - what a total fibber - I bloody hated every second this morning!!!!!!!! I believe that is the result of "endorphins" - it was honestly nothing to do with being smug - I genuinely meant it - which is insane - like saying giving birth is "totally fine" whilst you are having you traumatised undercarriage sewn up by a stern midwife whilst 3 medical students look at your bits.

So I took my turn on the treadmill and apparently my gait is perfect (she didn't use that word) but I took it as read as she talked about how perfectly I laid my foot on the floor without any of the much feared over-pronation and apparently the trainers I have been wearing are perfect for me and I just had to buy a new pair exactly the same as mine (which were last season's stock - 20% off) so along with 2 new pairs of high-tech running socks and a water bottle and 4 gels to practice with - 75 quid - hello!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello new trainers!!!!!.............I have bought £200's worth of Kurt Geigers before and not felt this excited!!!!.................the woman in the shop said these were perfect for me but as they were the first pair I had tried on she was happy to let me try on 10 other pairs to be sure. I told her that red is my favourite colour and I believe a good decision is a quick decision so we all agreed I should just buy them

............I am ridiculously excited about debuting them this wednesday on my running club night out.................not sure it will be a deal breaker in getting me round but I know I "needed" to do this but I am not good at doing what I "need" to do so I feel very very very pleased with myself with just getting on with it.

I thought it was just gonna be - run run run - just get out there and run - it will be that easy - but its so much more than that - you cant "run run run" without fundamentally changing how you live your life. Whenever people have said they "are so impressed by what I am doing" I dismissed it..........but now I can see what they are mean - its bloody hard and all-consuming.........but I do think that I "love it"..................until next Sunday that is.............