After a fairly long lay-off I put a pair of running trainers on for the first time this week.  As much as I was enjoying my break I did want to start running again. I found myself sitting at home sometimes thinking to myself "I want to go for a run" but I resisted because I thought the time off was good for me. Talking to other runners while I was on the break I got pretty much the same reaction everytime I told them I hadn't run for 4/5 weeks, it was something along the lines of "what the hell are you doing??", some had the cheek to even say I was being plain lazy!

So what were the reasons for this break? Well last time I ran I was struggling to jog which isn't a good sign. I think my body was telling me I was in need of some good rest so I listened. Also, normally when I have a break I only have a week or so and I thought why not try and have something a bit longer (I know 5 weeks maybe a bit too extreme). Rumour has it the Kenyans can have months at a time off and no one complains when they do it. The big reason I didn't start again earlier was I thought it was too early to start cross country training again. I know the longer I have off the more fitness I would've lost and the harder it would've been to get back but I was wary of beginning sessions in mid-august and doing almost 4 months of sessions before Liverpool, then doing more sessions after Christmas then starting the track season with 8/9 months of intense cross-country work in my legs.

Anyways I haven't been doing nothing this whole time. I've been doing some sort of exercising every once in a while. It had something to do with trying to hold onto some fitness but I mainly did it because I enjoy being active. The one thing I really enjoyed was playing football. Some of you will probably criticise me for it (the same people who called me lazy have already had some digs) but I couldn't resist. I don't see what the problem is because I didn't get injured and scored some great goals in the process. I'm sure if this running thing doesn't work out I'll be able to walk into any Premiership club I want.

As I say this week I was back in some running gear. I managed to get a couple of half hours in early on in the week. It was weird running again though. I can only describe it like after you have long flight and you're sitting down the whole time then when you get up you have that weird feeling in your legs. That feeling like you're learning to walk again but this time the feeling didn't disappear, it was there the whole time. I felt comfortable, but at the same time uncomfortable. I appreciate this is probably the worst description of all time but I can't really put it into words, it was the strangest feeling I've ever had while running. But as fate would have it just as quickly as I started I had to stop. I came down with a sore throat and Steve didn't want me taking any risks. It's starting to settle down now so today I said sod it and went for a run. Don't worry I took it easy. To give you an idea of how easy I took it I did a loop which normally takes me 30-35 minutes and today I was out for 40 minutes.

Once this throat problem goes the plan from here is to do some steady running for a couple of weeks, need to get some more time on my feet before I jump back into sessions. As much as I would love it to be easy to get back into decent shape, the odds are heavily stacked against it being like that with the amount of time I've had away. I know it's going to be a hard, painful, long road back and Steve has already said with the training I'm going to be doing he'll probably bring me to tears. It was my decision which got me to where I am now so unfortunately I got no one to blame but myself. Besides, no one got any good at anything by sitting around all day.

Til next time,

Goolab xxx