The mundanities of life

It has been some time since I wrote my blog. The realities of a very large deadline and accompanying imminent cessation in funds has seen me tied to my computer for more hours than I care to think about. And climbing still frightens me and being stressed out to the point of tears currently doesn't really feel like fun.

The Simple Chick says I go in phases, which is true, and this is a running phase, if it is anything. Running isn't stressful, unless I make it stressful, and it seems the perfect antithesis to thinking and writing about complex theoretical ideas relating to prehistoric archaeology. Work hard, run hard.

Pootling about on Ilkley Moor

I stopped running for several months earlier in the year, firstly due to injury and then because my entire world seemed to be constantly revolving at 90 miles per hours as I tried to spin more plates than I could really manage. But such times are unsustainable and eventually I reached a point where something had to change. On went my running shoes.

I am unfit now and it makes me sad that I wasted all the effort of last year by getting caught up in life for so long; in the moment, it is hard to see how much you have achieved or what you have become. I am not running as often as I was, I am tired and my body needs time to regain some of that previous fitness. But with renewed perspective, I think my attitude has changed, never am I going to not push myself as hard as I can, because that is who I am, but I can see now that running makes me feel significantly mentally and physically better and that is more important than race times or distances ever could be. I have remembered how much I love running off-road and I wish I still had the fitness of last year, not because I want to race or be fast, but because I want to be fit enough to go off into the wilderness, lace up my trainers and spend all day running over the mountains.