Changes

Last night Adam and I went to see The End of Longing, written and starring Matthew Perry. I can’t wholeheartedly recommend going to watch it, but it was fun and we had a laugh. The set was great but the whole feel of it was a little off; less theatre and more American sitcom on a stage (i.e. a shouted joke before fade to black at the end of each scene).

It was at the Playhouse Theatre, bang next to Embankment tube and the plan was to nip over to Victoria to catch a fast-ish train back home afterwards. So, we jogged to the tube, jogged down to the tube, stood for a few minutes, jogged up from the tube and into the station. We had tons of time for the earlier train (expecting only to get the one in another 30 mins) but I continued the jog all the way to the train and down the platform.

I chose to do that. Not out of necessity (which would have previously been the only reason to run) but because I could. And it was easy and it meant we got better seats. Also all in knee high boots!

Adam commented it once we settled in, that I would have been completely knackered by that jaunt only last year, and I would have sat, red and panting, on the train all the way to Bromley South. But I was fine. There was nothing in me that needed to recover.

How things have changed!

I remember my colleagues ran a 10k around London back in 2014 – they wanted a group to run and I remember thinking that 10k is far; way too far. I know that it still is a fair old distance but it is not so scary to me any more (OK, maybe after already running 12 miles it can be) but I remember thinking that it is quite an impossible distance to cover and didn’t even contemplate trying to join the group entering.

FYI – I still wouldn’t join that group (my mile times are still way too low to compete in anything) but now at least I could cover that distance without really thinking about it.

Its similar to my feelings of 5ks. I started off as a non-runner and into a C25k program, which I followed pretty closely and saw the improvements. But 5k was still a vast distance back then. Now I can’t imagine ever going for a run and not covering 5k as a minimum – what is the point!?

It’s all relative I guess – you start to run further, and the shorter (but still significant) distances just get smaller in your head.

While we are thinking back on the differences in me thanks to running (sadly no weight loss – I haven’t worked that one out yet, though am pretty sure it should be falling off me… *puts down cinnamon whirl*) I come to talk about feet.

You hear stories all the time of runners with all kinds of foot ailments: up to but not only blisters. I thought this was awful. Yuk. Why would you want to do anything that destroys your feet and gives you so much agony?

Obviously no one runs to intentionally encourage blisters and puss and pain but the thought of the damage and discomfort would be the one thing (along with huge amounts of laziness) that would stop me bothering with running.

But nope – I have had blisters all over both feet on numerous occasions – small ones, large ones, on my arches, on the pads of my toes, and even some sort of awful looking blood blister from Sunday’s 18 mile effort. You just get over it. You pop it, or leave it, and carry on.

What have I become!?