Keep on running?

Yes, thank you, we had a lovely time in Bamburgh, and we did indeed go on lots of walks: we felt very well-exercised. This is J setting out along the Lindisfarne causeway.

We also saw a lot of nice scenery


and birds


and went round several castles and historical sites, most of which I seem not to have photographed for reasons unknown. The weather was mostly good.


(Enough of my holiday snaps. But look at my nice Flickr mosaic thingy over there! -->)

Back to business: exercise, then, was good on holiday. Food, not so good. Although we managed to go to a different pub every night but one… that meant we ate pub food every night. Frankly, there wasn’t much else available. It was perfectly tasty, but we came home with quite a craving for vegetables (they usually make up at least two-thirds of all our meals). Maybe we will try self-catering next time, if we can find somewhere which is affordable with just two of us.

I hadn’t been terribly virtuous the week before, either, because I was writing an essay to submit for my degree, and J kindly provided me with various forms of comfort food. And although my diet hasn’t been appalling since we got back, I don’t feel entirely back on track. There’s been the odd random bit of toast and so forth.

I’m not very much given, these days, to wringing my hands over my bodily imperfections, but I’m not too happy right now. I feel squidgy. This is probably because I haven’t – not really – got back into a routine with exercise yet.

Irrespective of my actual weight/size, I feel good about my body when I’ve exercised vigorously within the last day or so, and less good when I don’t. Simple as that. So why the lack of routine? I don’t really know. I could do with being a bit more obsessive about it. Yeah, I’ve been busy. But we’re all busy. Yes, I’ve had other things to think about (J, mostly). But we all have other things to think about. Life doesn’t stop so you can catch up with it. You have to keep going regardless.

So: exercise over the last few days. I went for a run with J on Saturday morning (blistering my feet, but hey), and did my weights after that. On Sunday, I did some skipping (checking that none of the neighbours were in their gardens, because I don’t really want an audience. I know it’s good cardio but it makes me feel a bit silly). On Monday, which was a bank holiday, I went into town and walked around a lot (about four miles, according to Gmap Pedometer). Today, well, I had a bit of a stroll at lunchtime. Which doesn’t really cut it.

Another thing I did on Sunday, though, was go to Musselburgh to meet up with the legendary YP, fresh from running her second marathon that morning (and knocking an hour off her personal best!) This is the first time I’ve actually managed to meet someone from the fitness-blog community in person. I was more than a little nervous, because YP’s extremely focused, and… as I’ve just said at length, I’m not. However, she (and the other people there) were uniformly nice, welcoming and generally encouraging.

This had the salutary effect of making me remember that, although I might not be exactly a natural runner, I have done some proper running. It was only a few months ago that I used to run three times a week without fail, and that I was really beginning to get somewhere. I was hoping to do a 10K, and feeling good about the possibility (despite my feet). OK, life is busy. But life will always be busy.

So… shall I sign up for the Loch Ness 10K in the autumn? Or am I mad to think I’ll actually train for it?