Today has been beset with challenges.  

We trained this morning doing our special combination of circuits and I was gutted that I could not commit to my very annoying press up challenge.  This time last year I struggled to get to 20.  Only a few weeks ago I did a personal best of 63 full man (straight legs not bent knees) press ups in 2 minutes.  Today, I could hardly get a set of 10 in before collapsing and as for the tricep dips, it was more of a sherbet dip.  It was absolutely not going to happen. Anyway the abs work went well and I always enjoy the leg work.  

Training is still very important to me after all these years since school.  I then had a slightly different motivation to train, i.e. get into the athletics squad and get out of school.  I was incarcerated at a lovely school for young "ladies" in Scotland which had more ice on the inside of the windows during the winter than there was in the local butcher’s freezer.  It was a great school but the walls were very high and all I ever wanted to do was escape.  We had it tough, no doubt, but it was the making of the woman so to speak.  My love for running started then and I was particularly lucky to train with a girl who went on to become a Scottish International sprinter.  I never had that much talent but I had a bit of courage and certain amount of pig headedness not to give up.  Also, I was probably far too vain to let anyone beat me without a struggle.

I have recently plucked up the courage to re run the Frostbite 50 mile event in Yorkshire in January.  I ran this event last year and had a fantastic time, but I was not able to finish.  I had a map reading problem - (I couldn't do it!) so I had various extended detours over the Yorkshire moors.   I'm hoping I will have learnt from my mistakes and will be successful next January.  I did manage about 40 miles over very rocky, muddy terrain on the hills in about 10 hours.  So just 10 more miles to go on that and hopefully a finish.  


Also, I have rather rashly and prematurely agreed to run the North Norfolk Ultra run (marathon only) which leaves from Kelling Heath on Saturday 6th October.  I have not really been doing much training lately but if I can't manage to run, there is always walking and any old sausage can do it if they try.  


Whilst I am looking forward to both events, it's always with a certain amount of trepidation, fear, and light headedness.  There is no doubt it does hurt and it goes on and on and on for miles.  But the end of the race is such a relief it somehow blocks out the pain.  Probably a bit like giving birth.  But then when the running is going well one can fool oneself into thinking you are a super hero or your body is a machine and the whole run floats past in a blur of mind/body displacement.  I believe that this is possibly more to do with the endomorphins being released, rather than an actual out of body experience.  But thinking about it helps let the time go by.

And then there were my emails.  In the last week I have spent possibly 4-5 hours on the phone to some poor chap in Mombai begging him to sort the errors, pop ups, cookies verifications issues and lord knows what else.  This was eventually sorted and today for no apparent reason, it all went wrong again.  I had however, made notes throughout my endless IT informal training sessions and was able to right the wrongs.  Just as well as I was quite near to tears.

As for work - well it's been brilliant.  I am really excited about a few opportunities that have come along and look forward to getting stuck in.