It’s been a long haul. I think I first started having particular problems running due to muscles that seemed to cramp with only a few mintes effort as far back as early 2020. I’ve done many events since, had many new dawns followed by dark nights when I have thought I couldn’t go on as such a sad, slow shuffle was more depressing than even not trying to run at all.
I have never really been that interested in parkrun since back in the day we wouldn’t have even bothered getting out of bed for a 5km, far less have had such a distance as part of our training; we were distance runners. However, having Worsley Woods parkrun starting literally 3 minutes from my front door has given me the excuse I needed to have a realistic target, while maintaining a pretence that I was only doing it casually. I have already done it four times this year, my time decreasing with each attempt, though granted from a thirty-one minute and change benchmark. Other events have helped – a 5km organised by my friend Britta as part of some green gathering event, a local 5 miler my partner noticed was on only a couple of day before race day. And, though it may seem a strange form of training, spending 15 consecutive days as a full time badger vaccinator, walking 7-10 hours a day doing pre-baiting and cage setting during this June’s heatwave. I was so tired I never even thought of it as exercise.
Have I recovered? I’m not sure. My calf muscles still ache most of he time I’m running. Many of my training’runs’ have consisted of mixed running and walking, a few minutes running to a minutes recovery; some still do as getting out at all seems more important than the how. I have had to learn to swallow my pride and be what I’m sure must look an extremely sad site shuffling on while I imagine people are wondering what that old man thinks he is doing.
But a few times I have been running. Nothing like as fast as the level of effort would seem to warrant but able to push on not just survive. Those times feel good and strangely have even helped reconcile me to being so much slower now. At least I feel able to strive again, and something there seems more important than the timed result.