After nearly a full year of so little, so different to my plans when I started this site to record my adventures if only for myself, I had thought to discontinue it. But having checked my hosting plan and found that I had paid for two years last time, well, I’ll try to draw inspiration from anywhere I can get it.
It has been the worst year of my life. Not that worse things haven’t happened in my life – the illness and death of friends and family, both human and canine, the undiagnosed polymyalgia I had for some months etc., but from here they seem to have been fleeting occurences even if with long term consequences. This has just dragged on and on.
I have now retired from my main job and we are doing various trips on the Welsh coast with a view to buying a house somewhere. The holidays have taken us to some interesting places, some familiar as on Anglesey, others further down the coast into Cardiganshire less so, none have had any obvious effect on my fitness when I have returned to running (these days mostly what I caracterise to myself as runny-walks, a minute or two at a time running to half that walking – even doing this over two or three hours while out on Rivington Pike and Winter Hill and the Muncaster Hills). The will is still just about there, though I struggle at times to believe the words of a friend that this is long covid not forever covid, but I have always been one who has set goals and challenges and this grayness has no easily defined ones.
And I have returned to running, again and again. It’s strange but I did my share of drugs many years ago (yes, I inhaled) and probably more than my share of alcohol on a continuing basis, but have never considered myself an adict since I could quit for a day or a week as and when the mood took me, but quitting running cold turkey has seemed impossible.. Even though it has been a long time since I ran well enough to particularly enjoy the process rather than the result I still find the idea of not trying beyond me.