The ability to 'bounce back'.  Hmmm.  Bouncing back.  Another expression that gets banded around.  But what does it really mean?  It's not just a book written by Alan Partridge, but I suppose it's that ability to pick up where you left off, pull positives from every bad experience and not let it knock your confidence.

I don't have bounce-back-ability.  I have a bad memory.  That's a lie.  I try and have a bad memory.  I try and pretend it didn't happen.  If I think about something else then it can't get to me.  Like that monster in the cupboard. That's what I have been doing this week.  Thinking about something else.  Not managed to totally do this, as my thinking about something else, actually means thinking about something else running related.  My next races.  My coming training.  My next season.

But anyway it seems to have worked.  Desperate disappointment has been replaced by optimism about the coming weeks, new sessions to try out, a couple of races in the pipeline, an exciting trip ahead.

It hasn't been so easy though, I can't lie.  I was still feeling a bit low even on Wednesday. Moping about.  Not exactly the life and soul of the party.  But then the turnaround happened not long after 6am on Thursday morning, just when I thought I was doomed for a life of misery and running like a turkey.  I was ticking along at a decent pace but feeling pretty easy that morning, and I began to think back to all the training I had done.  The good sessions, the long runs, the boredom of bloomin' core stability!  The progress I have made over the last few years.  And I just kind of thought - there is absolutely no way, no way, that this is all I've got.  As far as I can go.  There  will be so many more races, more opportunities.  It just means I will get a chance to do a bigger PB in the future!

Maybe everyone goes through a bad patch.  A time in their career when they are in great shape but just can't seem to really do themselves justice in races.  It's just a case of sticking it out.  Plugging away.  Eventually your bad luck has to run out.  I'm sure it will come together.  I'm just not sure when...hopefully sooner rather than later!