Day Three of the Great oh-Fourteen February Facebook Freeze

So - how is it going?

Well. Day one was rubbish. I had a very difficult day in which I was told I had done things that I have not and would never and spent the day feeling frustrated and under attack. I kept thinking in FB status updates - some pretty passive-aggressive ones that I would never actually post. But also, I found I really wanted to log on just to see notifications and be reassured that there are all you hundreds of people out there that know me and wouldn't level ridiculous accusations at me. I was really interested that already I can start to see the more profound role that FB has taken in my life - it genuinely did feel like craving. It didn't help that I just didn't get out, although that was partly that the rugby was on and it was raining - a totally legitimate excuse for a sofa day! Although I briefly considered writing my thoughts on post-its and sticking them up on an actual wall. My immediate reaction to this was "you bloody idiot!". My secondary was "couldn't that be considered an art project?!"

Ultimately, I took the much more constructive step and spoke to one of my besties, Andrew, for about an hour and a half, in which he happily ranted, but rationally, on my behalf which was about the best balm I could have had. He also told me that I need to stop thinking that I can make anyone understand anything by explaining things logically. I think of all of my fundamental beliefs this might be the hardest to rid myself of.

Sunday I pre-empted any navel-gazing by packing my day as full as I possibly could - starting with a "Bokwa" class at 10.45 (this is basically a dance class in which you get taught moves that apparently equate to tracing letters out on the floor, but in a way devised by an incurably energetic spacehopper who has probably never seen actual letters and numbers, and whose knowledge is largely description-based, developed after consumption of one of those huge cafetieres of full-strength coffee. Also, the instructor knew less moves than most participants in the class, and hence her hour got hijacked for a considerable period. There were 3 of us who were actually learners so I wasn't the only Year 7 kid watching the cool sixth-formers practise their totally rad dance moves, running a dangerously high rick of accidentally smashing into a wall whilst trying to do a "four"....). This was followed to a visit to the lovely allotment which I have been lucky enough to get in on, and the community garden, from which I made off with a bunch of lovely kale (it was going to waste!!). Haven't even done any work and the plot's already yielding bounty! Then a couple of hours down the beach with Aimee & Rico and, of course, Alfie. Rico is so lovely and he makes me feel so happy when he's so full up of excitement that some of it has to come out as barks. Warms the very cockles of my heart!! N.b.: Aims is not so keen on this behaviour because she is a responsible dog owner, and so very sensibly discourages it.

Then came my first counselling session which was interesting. I hate explaining negative things to people. I feel like I'm giving them a ridiculous litany of woe. I keep trying to crowbar in positive things or saying "it's not so bad as I'm making out!" which is a bit ridiculous, if I think about it. I guess that means I've already got something to work on....

Anyway, I felt pretty wrecked afterwards but luckily for me I have this malleable tangled ball of fur and sand to cuddle:

One step beyond....

I knew I'd get some response but I didn't expect quite so many - on top of comments I have had almost 40 people contact my through email/text/messages/whatsapp, all overwhelmingly positive and supportive so thank you SO MUCH! Lots of really good suggestions but mostly, people telling me that they share a lot my experiences. I knew that depression was quite widespread but there's a difference between knowing it and so many, very different, people telling me: "I know where you are and it gets better". Of the personal recommendations of things that worked for people, counselling was definitely up there, but then other things like CBT, mindfulness, taking up an activity to occupy your hands, like knitting or origami, painting rooms, getting outside, screaming if you need to, amusing animal videos....

Also this interesting piece about the why constant access to the internet can ultimately end up making things more difficult.

I have already actively made some choices: I'm attending my first counselling session on Sunday evening, and I've found myself a friend in search of an allotment buddy! I've been thinking about allotments for a while but I know I would find it too hard to run a whole one on my own - but this is a marvellous opportunity and I'm so excited about it! Even just the act of writing my last post means that it makes it infinitely easier to ask for help when I feel I need it, because I don't need to bring up & explain the awkward subject of why I need help in the first place.

Thank you so much in proving to me once again the amazing friends I have and the wonderful people I've been fortunate enough to surround myself with over the years. I'm going to print out all your messages and emails and read through them when I need to. And I might.... I think I joined FB in 2005, so this will be my longest time without it in over 8 years, which is a pretty terrifying fact in itself!

Don't do anything too fun while I'm away, will you.....?

Facebook Free February

Right.

(Deep breath).

I am depressed.

I don't mean; "I'm very sad" or "Sherlock has ended" or "Tesco were out of Sauvignon Blanc". I mean, I'm currently in a place where I stare at the world and all I see is things I cannot do. Most of these things are things that, logically speaking, I can do. Like working a 9-5 day, or cleaning my house, or sorting out wayward builders, or walking Alfie, or deciding on the direction of my research, formulating a plan, and following that plan, or going out with my friends. Or getting rid of the piles of stuff in my house which were my dad's that I've been carting around for almost 5 years with no idea what to do with (this last point my mum has very kindly helped me out with by attacking it with an undaunted vigour, and just left me the simple stuff, like Freecycling the Freecycle stuff, eBaying the eBay stuff, and dumping the rubbish - I still have not been able to finish this). Every now and then when I think of all these things, I start to feel tight-chested and sick and there is a roaring in my ears. Sometimes when I'm walking down the road, I feel like something dreadful is about to happen to me, and I will not have the energy to fight. For a fortnight I couldn't sleep until the early hours, and even after ten hours sleep, sometimes I would wake up and be too exhausted to make myself some breakfast. I feel stupid and like I have no concentration span - that might be a surprise to a lot of people, but I spend most of my time feeling like a thick idiot and I just don't feel that I can retain the useful information that I need. I have to go through my friends person by person and prove to myself that they actually like me and aren't just putting up with me. Also; I have a note from the doctor.

Yes; I do know how lucky I am. I don't think I deserve better - in fact, I often think my family deserves a better person than me. I have so much to look forward to and so much to be grateful for, and dramatic as it might sound; those fact have saved my life. And I feel ashamed for not being able to buck up my ideas and get on with the business of life, as everyone else seems to be able to do. Up until the point my GP responded to my first sentence, I was sure she was going to tell me to get out and stop wasting her time. But I am here and I have tried and it has not worked; so I need to do something different.

Inasmuch as it can be broken down: obviously the main reason is that I still miss my dad terribly. Every single day I want to speak to him. In 2013, both my dad's father and uncle died, leaving so little of my family left. Kevin died five years ago in May, and only now is his inquest going to be held - but I still don't know when. For the last 3 months it's been "within the next few weeks". I thought it was going to be fine but as we edge closer but still haven't had it, I think about it all the time. There is just the basic reason that I have a family history of depression. The stress of owning a house by myself and having lots of decisions that are ultimately my own has not helped. I can't even make simple decisions without mulling them over and weighing up the pros and cons. There are lots of other things that I won't go into here. I imagine not doing enough exercise is playing a big role; but I've learnt that there's a big difference between knowing why something is happening and being able to stop it from happening.

Everything came to a head last week when I had breakfast with a friend of my mum's and listed all the things that I was stressed about in my normal pragmatic way. Then I spoke to my colleague whose father died suddenly recently, and all the horror and gaping chasm of reality I felt when Kevin died came looming up in front of me again. It's not the first time I've cried in the Combustion Lab but it is the first time I've had a witness. Then I spoke to my secondary supervisor and was barely in my seat before he was hurriedly getting me a box of tissues. We both came the the conclusion that I am not actually able to handle this myself, and need medical help. This sounds horrific, but actually, after at least a year of struggling this feels like a blessed relief.

There are a lot of things I'm going to do; predominantly organising some counselling, stop telling the people that care that things are "fine", shoehorn exercise back into my routine, prove to myself that I'm not totally inept, eating better, do things that make me happy.

Another thing I'm doing is; I'm giving up Facebook for a month. The shortest month of the year, but still. There are two big reasons for this: Time, and "brainspace".

1. Time: Even if I was able to measure it, I would be ashamed to admit the amount of time I waste on Facebook. Not just when I'm sitting in front of the TV, or on a train, or otherwise occupied, but times when I should be working, or when I could go out, or have house tasks to get on with. It's not just on FB, it's all the flipping links I click on whilst on there, which leads to the issue of attention; or as I'm just brashly going to call it, with no courtesy to neurology, brainspace...

2. Brainspace: I'm genuinely interested on how people's lives are going, and read tonnes of blogs etc. that people post, get involved in discussions that I know something about - but I never stop to ask myself how all the things I read are useful to me. Sure, they are interesting, but reading a blog about why Macklemore & Ryan Lewis didn't deserve the Grammy but Kendrick Lamar did, or why Miley Cyrus twerking is so bad, or so good, and what Sinead O'Connor thinks about the matter, or the various sides of the 20-year-old allegations of abuse against Woody Allen or BLOODY CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS USING THE SAME DISPROVED ARGUMENTS OVER AND OVER... ahem. But........ how does that improve my life?! It just gives me more bloody decisions to make! It's just too much information and that stresses me out. I feel like I want to know everything (except maybe anything about Hollyoaks/TOWIE/Posh version of TOWIE/Welsh version of TOWIE/Geordie version of TOWIE/American versions of TOWIE and Embarrassing Bodies....), and it's hard to accept that I can't. My mum made a very interesting point earlier: that taking on more information is a very effective way of ignoring the things you need to work on if you're depressed.

Also, counter-intuitively, I think FB has made me feel more lonely, as is very well described in this video by Shimi Cohen.

So that's it. For February. We'll see how it goes, but I have to be honest, I'm pretty scared. I think I'm going to miss out on tonnes of information, at least some of which will be valuable to me. Most of my social life is organised through FB so it'll be interesting trying to make sure I actually know what's going on. And all those cute pictures of animals, goddamnit!

Gulp.

InEqual Rites

I haven't posted in ages, partly because I've been pretty busy with work & life, and partly because I just haven't been running as much recently. But I recently was sent a link to the new cover for a book that is really precious to me - Terry Pratchett's third book in the Discworld series - Equal Rites. There are a number of reasons I feel strongly about this book; firstly, my Dad gave it to me when I was around 7 or so. As those who know me personally will know, I was tremendously close to my dad before he died in 2009. He was an amazing feminist and believed that girls should not be limited in what they do, so it was with great excitement that he gave me this book, about a small girl - Esk - accidentally becoming a sourcerer, in a world of magic populated almost exclusively by men. She is ostracised by this world, and brought up by a witch: Granny Weatherwax, in possibly (?) the first appearance by this most enduring of Discworld characters. Secondly, my copy is signed by Pratchett himself, and in it his has inscribed "To Angharad, Rite On!". I cannot overstate what a massive Pratchett fan I was and always will be, and so you can imagine the positive effect that this had on me. I have tried, quietly and stubbornly, throughout my life, not to get sucked in to the idea that as a girl and them woman, I must do this, look like this, talk about that, react in such-and-such a way. I have a physics degree, and I'm doing an engineering PhD. I don't believe I should have to wear a full face of make-up every time I leave the house. I am rarely intimidated by men just because they are men. I don't buy into the lessons sold us by society that women should be seen and not heard, that they are the ones who take care of the children and do the cooking. To be frank, most of it is utter bullcr*p, and not conducive to equality.

I hold these views, and so strongly, because my parents brought me up this way, and gave me strong female role models to live up to. Esk is one of these. So you can imagine my dismay at seeing the new artwork for the book, and discovering that Esk and Granny W - the two female main characters in a book called Equal Rites - have been removed from the cover. I tweeted the publishers, Transworld Books (@TransworldBooks), and their parent company Random House (@RandomHouseUK) to ask for clarification, but got no response. So today I emailed Transworld with the email below. If you feel anything about this at all, even if you are not a Discworld fan, or a massive Discworld fan who doesn't consider themselves a feminist, I would love it if you could get in contact with them as well, at least to let them know that such a cynical step has not gone unnoticed. Thanks for reading - and if you have never read this book, I highly recommend it!

**UPDATE!**
Following discussions on Facebook, it has been pointed out to me that they are still there, just on the back cover, underneath the blurb. Picture kindly put together here. My feeling is similar, but slightly less gall-inducingly stunned. I'd be interested to hear of other books where the two characters that are the main focus of the book appear on the back cover, rather than the front, whilst secondary characters take up the front cover. I can't even remember their names! I shall reread my much-loved copy asap.

"Dear Sir/Madam, 

I am contacting your about the new artwork for the third book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. As you may know, this book is about a small girl (Esk) who unwittingly becomes a sourcerer, is ostracised from the magic community on account of her sex, and is brought up and trained by a witch (Granny Weatherwax - one of Discworld's most enduring characters). This was the first Discworld novel I ever read, when my father gave it to me when I was aged around 7, and is still my absolute favourite. My copy is, in fact, signed by Sir Pratchett himself, with the inscription "Rite On!". This book is so special to me, as it was inspirational in my path in life. I have pursued goals which are not traditional for women, including a physics degree and an engineering PhD. This was made partly possible by the strong female roles I've been exposed to throughout my life, including Esk. 

So it is with concern that I note that both Esk and Granny Weatherwax - the two main characters - have apparently been removed from the new cover of Equal Rites. There is a ridiculous disparity in the visible presence of men & women in much of the media that we are exposed to; news panels, comedy shows, newspaper photography, movies, TV shows, and, as I can see no other reason for the removal of these characters than to appeal to your intended (if not actual) male demographic to the exclusion of potential female readers, this seems like a terribly cynical step further down the slope of representing women in a narrow range of roles - mostly limited to; wife, mother or partially clothed.

I would be interested to hear your motivations for this removal, if they are different than the above. I have asked for clarification on Twitter, which has thusfar been ignored, so I eagerly await your response by email.

Sincerely,

Angharad Beurle-Williams"

Edinburgh

So no talk of running this post, but just a relating of my (second) yearly Edinburgh Fringe trip. I had good intentions and took along my running gear - however I found that I'd neglected to pack my trainers, probably one of the more vital parts of kit, and I wasn't running anywhere dap-less. So I came to the necessary conclusion that lots of walking was good enough to suffice. Snort.

Just over 3 days of heady Edinburgh glory - starting each day with a spring in my step, optimism in my heart and skipping down to Grassmarket.... ending each day trudging up the hill towards Haymarket, weighed down by flyers and trying to figure out how I felt about serious things like suicide and lyrical poets.

The thing that I (along with almost everyone else) love about the Fringe is the complete departure from the normal things I would choose to go and see. Sure, the comedy brings me in, but it's all the theatre and dancing and that that I stay for. Along with the good company. And the comedy.

The only downside of the trip was the travel through Cardiff "International" Airport, which was yet again another exercise in frustration and misery. More about that in the next post, no doubt!

This year I saw a broader and more numerous selection of shows than last year, but I can definitely do better with more advance planning. Edinburgh 2013 will be EVEN MORE jam-packed and emotionally confused than 2012. The selection of shows I saw this year were:

The Booking Dance Festival Split Bill - consisting of the Hammerstep Dance Company performing some pretty impressive tap/Irish dancing/street dance fusion complete with beatboxing, and The Dallas Black Dance Theatre, with a piece inspired by a poem about painting black angels (as opposed to white ones), and a really beautiful ballet portraying some important moments of the wonderful Nina Simone's life, set to her music, and brilliantly narrated (I assume from her autobiography). This was just stupendous and gave me a glimpse of what an amazing life she led - I walked away thinking that I'd better that autobiography to my to-read pile before I forget about it.

I then when to meet my lovely host Sally to go to Caesarean Section - Essays on Suicide which was very absorbing - some amazing singing - I call it singing but it was more like emoting through vocalisation - quite primaeval at some points. It was really amazing, but I have to say, I wasn't really sure what was going on a lot of the time. There were three cast members actually moving around (as opposed to singing, playing instruments and percussing the whole affair) and I was constantly confused as to which one was trying to commit suicide and in which context the other two related to them. I think this is largely due to the I'm basically used to a very straightforward narrative, like in films, and am not particularly adept at following stories when there isn't that same kind of linear progression. I did massively enjoy it, however!

Following that, after a watching a triptych of ultra-slow-motion film clips of (mostly naked) people doing various things, which was really hypnotising, we gatecrashed a lovely wine reception where most of the people were really friendly, the wine was deeeeeeeeeeelicious and the view if Edinburgh was spectacular. Then we walked home and got proper chips on the way. Nom.

Sunday morning and my first port of call was Tony Law's Maximum Nonsense. As per, @mrtonylaw didn't fail to impress. The show culminated in a lovely song sung by various elephants, as we, the adoring, flag-waving crowd, were surrounded by spinning elephants fashioned out of neon-coloured plasticine. I can't say too much about Mr Tony Law. I envy his "twin 3-yr-old obnoxious troll" children that they get to grow up with a dad that probably, probably, might be as good as mine. If he tours, I might just go and see this show again. Brilliant.

Sunday evening, after a lovely Japanese meal at Bonsai I went to see Jayde Adams is Master of None which was a delightfully bonkers show which deserved a much bigger audience than it got on that night. Jayde used to manage my local quirky cocktail bar before heading off to London to make her name as a comedian. She was always really funny when I spoke to her so I thought I'd check out what she was like on stage. I was a little trepidatious but she was brilliant. The show was a discombobulated train ride through balloon modelling, malicious childhood nativity re-enactment, and videos - I think my favourite bit may have been the manically-fast interpretation of a massive bunch of music videos. She runs a comedy night in Shoreditch called The Painted Grin - should be pretty hila-ma-larious if her show is anything to go by.

Monday morning (ish) saw me head to a hip-hop hip-hop imagining of Shakespeare's Othello which was wonderfully interpreted through the use of lyrical poetry (I am using this as a fancy way to say: rap). All the highs and emotional bits and the miserable inevitability of a Shakespeare play, but pretty different than the last time I went through it (a bunch of bored/embarrassed 15 year olds reading it out in a South London comprehensive).

I tried to see the Oxford Imps improvisation show but unfortunately I didn't realise that Othello was 75 minutes long and they wouldn't let me in because I was late. I was a bit miffed - I could understand if it was a big intense play, but - improvisation? Hmmm.

After than was Nick Helm's This Means War, to which I went with a hastily arranged date (with the lovely Lloyd) since apparently this is a show you cannot go to alone. It was bloody hilarious, especially considering I was there are a 5 minute clip from Russell Howard's TV show. Which I have re-watched too many times to admit to here. My favourite bit of THIS show was when he had a break down in the middle of the floor and started crying to the audience member that he had pulled up and made to peel potatoes. AAAahahahahaha crying! It's funny!

Also that evening I spent a bit of time watching "graduates" from a comedy school - they had about 10 minutes each and there were some very funny people in there, so eyes out for them in the future, so I can yell obnoxiously "I SAW THEM WHEN THEY WERE REALLY NEW AND YOUNG AND TERRIBLY NERVOUS!". I had to leave halfway through, sadly, as I had to get over to The Caves on Grassmarket to watch the brilliantly dry Henning Wehn - in his own words, the most successful comedian, because either he makes people laugh, or he confirms a national stereotype. I like him because he asked my which Olympic events I went to and then blamed me for the ticket shortage, then everyone laughed at me which totes makes me populair.

The next morning was my last day, so I headed to the box office and picked up a bit of a lucky dip of tickets - I went to see Ride of the Bluebottles which was a really enjoyable and mostly funny play about a terrible band, Peter Panic which was a mildly dystopian and warped imagining of what would happen if Peter Pan came back and Wendy was an adult and married to the Prime Minister in a version of the UK that was being ripped apart by rioting. I can say that this was the weirdest thing I went along to watch, and I think most of the audience felt the same. There was a lot of confusion to be heard walking out of that theatre. But my favourite show of the last day was Sad Faces Remember It Differently, which was possibly my favourite show of the lot. Effing brilliant - a great premise, four very gifted comic actors, brilliant scripting wit the cracked like the lovechild of brittle toffee and lightning. Fantastic, and hopefully they will be back on Radio 4 Extra sometime soon - I CAN'T WAIT!

Garmin Forerunner 410

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I decided to get myself a lovely GPS running watch in order to make recording my running easier (My love of spreadsheets knows no bounds), and hopefully be an important motivator in getting me out and running when I really didn't feel like it.

I managed to find a really good deal on the Garmin Forerunner 410, which had some great reviews, the majority of which seemed to be most excited about the fact that the bezel on the 410 was much better than that on the 405CX. Since this is my first running watch, I really don't have anything to compare it to, but sure enough, the bezel works very well. No complaints about the bezel here!

Displays:
The main display is easily customisable - I like to have the basic three: distance, time and heart rate. There are apparently 30 different metrics you can choose to display, but I really only rely on these 3. They can be jigged around too - at the moment I have the time as the largest in the main display, but I may change this as I find it pretty distracting. I keep trying to work out my pace whilst running. This is all the more pointless, as this is a built-in function -Virtual Partner - that allows you to check your run against an imaginary friend running at a pre-set pace, who smugly informs you of how far in distance and time you are behind them. This is a great motivator for putting in that little bit extra at the end of the run to improve your overall run pace.

GPS Accuracy
The product description revels in how quickly it finds GPS signals, but actually I've had some problems with this. I have to stand outside my door for a minute or so before my position is pinpointed to within 10 or 15 metres. For a few runs, I didn't bother waiting - unfortunately this resulted in fairly considerable inaccuracies in run distance. Before I got the watch, I was running the same routes over and and over, and I had mapped them out of the brilliant Map My Run, using satellite imagery - when uploading,the route onto a map, parts sometimes bears little relation to what I think I've run, and the start point is a fair distance from my house. This resulted in the same runs coming out at 100+metres shorter - maybe not a considerable difference, but the marginal gains in my pace are easily wiped out by such errors, and I rely on marginal gains to keep me motivated!

Another possible reason for errors is the auto-pause function. This is really useful when you stop at roads (or to clean up after your dog), but there is a short interlude between you starting up again and the timer starting up - I'm not sure how the software deals with these gaps in the route, so this might be where some errors creep in.

Waterproofing
The watch isn't waterproof, but it is shower-proof. It proved its mettle in this regard a few weeks ago, when, having no other option, I headed out in the pouring rain (on the morning of my birthday barbecue, after being assured that Paula Radcliffe doesn't say "Oh, it's raining. Sod that!"). I was soaked to the skin before I ever started running, and the watch was absolutely fine - so I can definitely vouch for this claim!

Calorie Calcualtion
Also included is calorie calculation - this is done one of three ways: the most basic is a simple weight/distance/elevation/speed calculation. The second one - the option that I use - utilises the heart rate monitor, using your heart-rate for a slightly more complicated (and presumably more accurate) calculation. If you're really keen, you can go to one of a specific few centres where they calculate your VOx and metabolism, according to whichever set of criteria they deem the best, and your watch then uses this information along with your heart rate to give you an ostensibly more accurate again figure. I'm not really interested in calories (once I start running regularly, I tend to find I don't eat much more & over compensate) so I use the middle option, since I'm interested in my heart rate anyway.

Wireless Data Transfer & Software
Data transfer is the easiest thing in the world - after going through the fuss of finding the necessary driver and linking them up the first time, all subsequent watch-computer-internet communication happens without any intervention on behalf of the user. Users need to sign up to Garmin's online service, which allows each route to be uploaded to an online database which will give you all the information you require. So far, I have not been able to find any way to store the results except online, which is a bit annoying. I did download the recommended software for Garmin, but it quickly became apparent that to get anything useful from it, I'd actually have to buy a copy. I may do this if, at some point in the future I feel I need analysis more extensive that that offered by Garmin & MMR.

Effect on my running
I'd definitely say that having the watch has improved my running - perhaps not quite as much as I had expected, but there have been times when I may not have run 40 minutes required by my schedule, as my apathy would not have overcome figuring out a route on MMR, and making sure to run it - with the watch, I just slap it on and head out. Yesterday was the first time this didn't work to plan, as I'd neglected to charge it, and so just had to follow a pre-determined route and roughly keep track of my time.

Conclusions
All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the Forerunner 410 - slightly lacking in accuracy, perhaps, but it looks lovely, works well most of the time, and is small enough that it's easy to forget it's there once it's on. It makes keeping track of progress really easy, and offers tonnes of added extras if you're really into your data analysis. I'm looking forward to using the navigation function and possibly starting to use other metrics, as well as trialling use on my bike as well. Excellent!

Motivation

So; my first milestone is less than a week away. On Saturday morning, I will run the Cardiff Race for Life 10 km. It's not my main goal, but it is an important stepping-stone objective towards completing the half-marathon for which all this training is aimed, in October.

My training was going very well - I started running 4 times a week, including a longer run at weekends, and still managing to do other exertion-related activities, such as a 25 mile bike ride to the beach, and (almost) weekly circuits classes. However, I have found the strength of my motivation to be fairly undulating. I want to say; "like a rollercoaster"; but that implies sudden changes, speed, and much more fun..!

Early on, as I was began to pay attention to my training plan, it was very difficult to persuade myself that I a) could and b) wanted to run four times a week. After a couple weeks of persuasion from both me, and those around me, I managed to do a couple of weeks of the full amount of training that I had set myself. I thought I'd cracked it, and I was very pleased with myself.

Sadly, it was not to continue.

A number of factors have concerted to create obstacles (both actual and perceived) - some family issues, busy weekends, muscle fatigue, rubbish weather, slight illness and a less-than-ideally regimented diet (this is an ongoing concern and one that I will blog about in the future - once I figure it out!) have left me feeling a little washed out and, critically, not motivated enough to get out there and hit the road as much as I need to. I am telling myself right now that I can make all the excuses that I want: the fact is that I won't be able to do this run in the time that I wanted to. That's a bit disappointing - but failure can be more important than success in many situations, and I need to take that annoyance at myself and channel it into positive internal motivation, as I begin training for the biggie.

The positive summation of the last few weeks is: I've consistently been running longer distances at regular intervals (I've only missed one weekend run so far), my average speed is going up slightly, and coupled with the previous fact, this is even better than it seems. I have managed to overcome the internal naysayer on many runs (that niggling voice that says "you'd better just turn back now, otherwise you're going to be CRAWLING home!") . I'm already noticing the weight loss, and how the first couple of km at least feel much easier than they used to. I've really enjoyed being outside on a few of the runs, despite one run in a massive downpour, for which I was soaked to the skin for the entire 11km, and another where I inadvertently ended up splashing through very muddy puddles. So far I have managed to avoid any kind of injury - whilst parts of me niggle during runs, they are never the same parts on consecutive runs. And I've got the hang of my running watch, pretty much - which will be another post that hopefully writes itself!