Week 2 Run 2 – The One With The Potassium Rush

Morning came this morning, in case you were unaware, and here it was a lovely start – the ground was a bit soggy, but it wasn’t raining at all, about 9 degrees, pretty much perfect running weather as far as I’m concerned. (And believe me, when it comes to running I’m concerned quite a lot).

Today I planned my run beforehand, and then accidentally missed a turning and ended up doing a completely different one. That’s something you don’t see very often – somebody in a car might stop and ask for directions (unless they’re male, in which case we’ll drive confidently in any direction until we end up in the right place or run out of petrol, in which case we’ll sell the car and start a new life wherever we happen to have landed, to avoid embarrassment. I once managed to get in the wrong lane when very nearly home and it took me another twenty minutes to get back because I didn’t want to admit I’d gone wrong and turn around). Occasionally you’ll get somebody who’s walking ask you where some important thing is (I seem to get this quite a bit, I must look like I know where I’m going. They evidently didn’t read the previous bracket) but you never see somebody stop from a jog to ask how to get somewhere. So I found a different route instead.

Laura seems to be giving me a bit of a respite at the moment, the running itself hasn’t been too painful. The disadvantage of using the same podcasts, though, is that advice that was at least vaguely interesting the first time feels more and more patronising the more you hear it. Admittedly hearing the breathing advice a second time, I understood a bit more what she meant, and I tried it. I think the following haiku sums up my experience:

One, two, three, four, breath;

One, two, three, four, breath; one, breath…;

Oh, I’ve done it wrong.

It’s disappointing when you can’t even breathe properly.

Fortunately, I did manage to make it back despite the bad directions and the inability to respire as Laura wants me to. Whilst stretching, I thought what a strange idea that was. Who sat down and thought “When I do exercise, my legs start hurting a bit later. The obvious solution to this is as soon as I finish exercise to contort myself, so my legs hurt then instead. That will solve the problem.”? I bet they were as surprised as anybody when it turned out to actually be the sensible thing to do.

I don’t really know what I’m saying. I had the recommended banana and water after the run so I think I’m coming off a potassium rush.

Una Stubbed-Toe

(I seem to be going Sherlock-themed this week, but this is the last name I have. Given how I felt last week, perhaps Rupert Grave would have been a suitable third).