The Slow Long Claw Back to Fitness

It's been tough trying to get back to a 'fighting fit' stage. Currently I'm anything but. Because all my 'runs' previously were transferred to the elliptical and because I found the elliptical dead boring, I had pretty much reduced mileage to under 5k (but really mostly only 2k) and that didn't even translate to running on the road. In the heat. And it's been so hot. I come back from a run nowadays - and by that I mean the only 2 runs I've done this year - dripping with sweat and terribly disappointed in how slow all this is taking.

Yesterday Rich and I did our first trail walk again in ages. It almost didn't happen because it was pissing down at 7am. The rain stopped eventually and we mucked around. Before long it was 10 and getting too late to do anything. We made alternative plans - maybe we could walk to breakfast and walk back - before we decided to just bite the bullet and do the damn trail walk we'd planned to do in the first place. So after a quick breakfast, we headed out at close to noon.

My ankle and foot ached after our 2 hour trot and I ended up having to cut the walk short because it hurt too much. I don't think I had a huge pain tolerance in the first place (my motto has always been NOT to run through the pain) but it seems what little I had has now been shot and I spend half the time now icing something or the other. That said, aches and pains aside, the walk was good.

We took the trail behind my house and walked to the nature reserve, did half of it and ended up back on Rifle Range where I threw in the towel and insisted we get a taxi back. It was nice to be among all the green again and in spite of my sore ankle, I really do love trail, even with the bugs, mozzies and all them creepy crawlies. Hopefully fingers crossed I can get down to attempting a run on trail again without killing myself by tripping over a root or something equally idiotic.

Incidentally, I've been using the Daily Mile to log my training. I started using it because the Masters Swimming Club had a swim challenge they issued to all of us and I had to sign up to join the challenge. It's pretty amazing though and it can never hurt to know how many donuts you've burnt off or how many tvs you've powered. If any of my friends are using it, add me as your friend! It'll be fun to train together virtually! There's never any harm having more training buddies!