What's going on?

It's been a while. Not just a while since I wrote a blog post, which was insanely positive about my running but also well, since I ran. My last run was 5k at 4pm on 10 November 2021. Exactly 14 weeks ago, what's that 98 days - wow nearly at the 100 days of no running mark. 

I didn't mean for that to happen, but it has. Perhaps in November and December I meant for it to happen. Dark days in a number of ways, too much wine (is there such a thing), too much food. But January started lighter and brighter in so many ways. I knew I didn't feel like running but I have been walking daily, discovered Apple Fitness+ and restarted trying to be more mindful in my eating habits. All of which has added up to feeling a lot better mentally and starting to feel better physically. 

Yet running remains off the table. I can't say I even miss it. My therapist thinks perhaps it was filling something in me that no longer needs to be filled. Which may well be true. I don't know. I know that I think I will go back to it. Once I'm feeling fitter. That's how I found it after all. I was losing weight, the gym was no longer cutting it so I started to run. At the moment the thought of the effort needed to pound the pavements or the trails doesn't inspire me to put on my dusty trainer and squeeze into ill fitting run gear. 

I guess if I don't run again I'll have to retire this blog, I've been thinking of doing that anyway, after all it's always been a lot more about my mental health in the last 3 years than running. And now I've got lots more to say about being a 48ish year old woman who is going through the hell that seems to be peri-menopause. I mean lets face it, if you're reading this thinking it is about running you are probably not my target audience...

Oh and did I say hell? I did, it is hell. But not every day hell. Oh no. Like I say January was a pretty spectacular month in that I felt content, settled, in control. Started taking Black Cohosh alongside my now obligatory anti-depressants (just let them try and stop that prescription). Have a routine that involves therapy, Frazzled Cafe, even returning to parkrun as a volunteer and feeling almost sociable. Back to the office didn't even phase me. But then something slowly happens, fatigue, followed by more fatigue, followed by a hot flush, followed by not even remembering your own name, followed by an inability to hold your wee for more than 10 seconds. And did I mention fatigue? And now it's the 17 Feb and my wonderful January feels like a distant memory and I begin to question EVERYTHING...which is not a good place to be. 

As I start to wonder if it's me I realise it isn't me. It's peri-menopause. The battle for a solution and probably HRT continues. But being kind to myself also needs to ramp up. Learning to perhaps live with my new reality and weight also accepting that I can still run. That actually what is stopping me is the perception others may have of me, that I'm not as fit or fast as I once was and accepting that none of that matters. 

This may therefore be my last blog post here, I may start a new one away from the running world and moving into the mental health, menopausal, who the f**k are we becoming world. Or I may not? That's the joy of not really understanding what the hell is going on at this moment in time!