A Bit Tired...

When my eldest son was smaller, say about two years' old or something like that, he got into the habit of appending the word "bit" to everything he said. He was "a bit hungry.." or "a bit hot..." or, alternatively, "a bit cold..." Or, he'd been "a bit sick..." (this would be to explain the fact that his bed had been transformed into a sea of vomit after contracting a particularly nasty tummy bug - and I know just how nasty it was because I caught it myself a couple of days later...) This could also be applied to describe things other than his own feelings. For instance, the snail he had just trod on would be "a bit dead..." You get the picture. Anyway, for some reason, describing himself as "a bit tired..." was a favourite of his. (This must surely have been due to the fact that the little bugger absolutely refused to have any daytime naps after the age of sixteen months. Never a big fan of sleeping anyway, after he hit the age of sixteen months, sleeping in the daytime was suddenly a big no-no, and despite him clearly still needing this crucial nap in the afternoon, he would stubbornly refuse to give in and just have the sleep he needed. This led, as you can imagine, if you are a parent, to lots AND LOTS of tiredness related whingeing/tantrums usually culminating in him sobbing plaintively somewhere (too close) to the vicinity of my eardrum "....Bit tired, Mummy.... Bit tired..." And the only solution you were able to offer was a cuddle, because for some reason snapping "Well, go to bloody sleep then," which is what you wanted to do, didn't work.

Anyway, this week, I've felt "a bit tired" myself. In the first instance, I've had a cold. It's not been a particularly bad one, but I've felt it because I haven't had one for a while, and it's the first one (probably of many) of the Winter months to come. As a result of this, I've felt a bit tired and a bit out of sorts and I really didn't want to go swimming one bit on Tuesday night. I mean, like, really didn't want to go. But then I thought, okay, I've got a cold. It's kind of a valid excuse, BUT if I start making excuses NOW, at this early stage in proceedings, I really have just had it. I know myself; I'll make excuse after excuse, week after week, and when the time actually comes around I will just drown in Windermere, because I won't be able to do the swim. So I went and did my swimming session. How is that for commitment? I stand in awe of myself. I actually went.

I did alright as well, if I do say so myself. I was slightly alarmed by how cold the water temperature felt in Pond's Forge. The display in the foyer clearly indicated that the International Pool was 27 degrees. When I got in, however, it felt really, really cold. Which does not bode well, when the organisers of the Great North Swim have indicated that the temperature in Windermere in September (the time of the swim) will be around 15 degrees. (I suppose it might encourage me to swim faster if it feels really, really, really cold). I couldn't swim much slower, that's for sure. Even though I'm swimming in the slow lane, I'm constantly being lapped by other (slow?) swimmers. Still, speed is not important in endurance events. At least, that's what I keep telling myself. (It might be important - It might, for instance, start to matter if I'm still swimming the mile and night starts to fall, or something along those lines, but I'm sure I will speed up. You have to remember, after all, I am very new at this).

I swam twenty lengths, which I worked out (and I never was that good at maths, so I might be wrong here), but I worked it out to be one kilometre (20 x 50m lengths = 1k). I only need to add another .6 of a kilometre to add to that and I've done it! I've done the mile! How's that for progress? I'm still swimming in a bit of a funny way, though, I must admit. I do still definitely need to look into that lesson. I also need to remember to take my wedding ring off before I get in the pool each week. I'm so terrified of losing it that I have ended up swimming with my hand all scrunched up, and this resulted in cramp in my hand last week, as well as being detrimental to my swimming style, which is poor anyway. Still, all these negative points aside, being as I was actually ill at the time, I was quite pleased with myself.

I also managed the running part of the training. Yes, I have fulfilled my quota of two runs per week, this week, despite the cold and feeling a bit tired. There is, I have noted, a serious problem with running in Sheffield. It's so hilly. You just end up running uphill for ages and then following this with long periods of (usually steep) downhill sections. On balance, I decided last week, whilst I was running down Carterknowle Road and my knees were killing me, that I prefer the uphill to the down. I know this sounds strange; and don't get me wrong, I find running uphill very, very hard. However, it's easier on the knees than the long sections of downhill routes. Also, running uphill, I can feel my body working; I'm out of breath, my heart's pumping faster, and, surely, this is all contributing to improvements in my overall fitness? However, on the downhill sections, I feel that I'm covering distance, but I'm barely out of breath and I don't think that it's really doing that much for me, from an improving fitness point of view. One of the very generous people who have sponsored me on my justgiving page this week pointed out that I need to train smarter to be able to gain the necessary fitness to complete the events I have promised I will. He told me that intelligent training will mean that this entire insane project will have less impact on family time, because I'll need to spend less time training, but I'll still be able to do the events, and comfortably. He's right. He's so right. And I don't think that wasting valuable time running down hills and potentially injuring my knees is tantamount to "training smarter". What I need is to find an uphill version of Powder Park.

Now, any of you who has ever visited France during the winter months may have come across a slightly (very) dodgy teen-drama called Powder Park. I'm not sure if it actually originated from France, come to think of it. There is a distinctly American sheen to the programme, so maybe the very glossy, cleancut actors and actresses featured in this programme were actually American with their words being dubbed into French. Anyway, basically, Powder Park was set in a ski resort where the ultra glamorous heroes and heroines and all of their equally glamorous pals snowboarded and ski'd about to various locations whilst performing the business of enacting the dramas of their daily lives. Now the very odd thing about this programme was that in order to get absolutely anywhere in Powder Park you had to snowboard there (or ski) - but more snowboard, because it's cooller (sorry skiers, but it is). That meant that, of necessity, absolutely anywhere the actors/actresses wanted to go was downhill. For example, they'd snowboard down to the pub, have a few drinks, flirt/fall out with each other before snowboarding back down to home again - which clearly must have slid down the mountain in the time it took them to have the few drinks/flirt/fall out with each other in the pub, because they'd snowboarded down from home before... You get the picture. It was all very odd, but quite amusing too.

Anyway, if I could find a running route where I ran up the hill and then in a loop which would lead me in an uphill manner back up the hill to home again, I'd be very happy (and so would my general fitness and my knees). Sadly, I suspect that the laws of geography/science indicate that this might be an impossibility, but you never know. I was rubbish at geography and science as well at school, in addition to being rubbish at maths (and PE - I'm not painting a very good picture of myself here as a school pupil, am I?)

I haven't found one yet anyway. I went out today and went for a fairly level run, but even that included uphill sections and, of necessity, downhill ones too. (Absolutely everywhere you go in Sheffield entails going up a hill somewhere along the way. There are just too many hills). I wasn't going to go far today. I'm up to running around 5 miles distance now in each run and I'm quite happy with that for the moment. After all, my first run, the Great Winter Run is only 3 miles long, so I should be able to finish it comfortably now (I hope - all of this optimism might be ridiculously misplaced, and I might just be setting myself up to fail by even articulating it). After that, the next race isn't until May, so I've got time to build more distance into my training plan. Still, today, I ran six whole miles, which I was really pleased with, because it's around 10k, although it did take me a long time. Which leads me back to training smarter in order to save time. I think, on the whole, I'm just going to have to get a lot smarter at a lot of things (maths, geography, science, training sessions to name but a few) if I'm going to succeed.

Don't forget you can sponsor me now at: http://www.justgiving.com/valderbyshire I would be so grateful for your support for the Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity, in the meantime, I'm off to lie on the sofa with a gin and tonic because I'm a bit tired...