and pause...

Although I said my blog would be all about the ups and downs, of course I hoped (and believed) it would all be up, up up! Especially once I hit the medal trail, started running longer distances - this blog was going to take me and you all the way to Brighton 2015 without a hiccup. 

No hiccup - just one giant, long, slow BURP!

May was all going so well, ran nearly 12 miles, took part in Larkfield 10k and smashed my personal best and then - well I stopped. I've had to stop before in my short running career - nasty shin splints (I am now a shin splint expert, ask me sometime for my exercise regime) meant I couldn't run for about 3 weeks. 

Something about injury enforced breaks feels easier than what I've just gone through. I've not been injured (although I did have a bad cold for a week) - it's just been life. That chaotic, topsy turvy, uncontrollable, sometimes great, sometimes crap, always fluid and unavoidable thing we all deal with day after day.

I'm not about to go in to detail about my life for the last month, but because of various factors (one being a week that included being on 6 planes across 4 countries) I have achieved 3 runs in 4 weeks. And 2 of those were just last week! 

My running buddy Glyn has said to me today "routine is the key" - of course he's right, but what do you do when you can't fit a routine in? How do you cope with crisis, the unexpected and downright inconvenient? I've learnt that I don't cope well. And when I don't cope well I also eat. 

So of course combined with not running I've been slowly slipping back down a slope of eating chocolate, cake, sweets, fatty foods, ANY FOOD and as this month hasn't been all doom and gloom so too the odd alcoholic drink or two or four or ten! 

Tomorrow is another day and I am now back running - I've done 2 runs this week, and will have my first Friday Sweatshop in a month and most exciting this Saturday have my first ever trail race a 10k through Bedgebury Pinetum. Another medal surely will make me feel better and inspire me to get back to my routine?

I guess I have to review why I stopped running, why I slipped back in to such easy eating habits (lets face it the healthy eating is the hard stuff). I'm not really very good at self-reflection or even self-learning.  But I need to find a way of recognising the signs when life may get in the way, get some strategies for fitting in small runs, baby targets and the odd salad now and then. 

I could just hope this never happens again, yet somehow I think it will after all life is full of burps and farts and runny poo!