The come back that went back

A couple of weeks ago I tried for a come back run. For three weeks I had barely moved. I had caught buses, lounged on the sofa and made others fetch things for me. It was like Before Marathoning but with added guilt.

So with feet that were pretty robust, I took to the streets and went for a run. I plotted 2.2 miles out and back the same distance. By the first corner, it felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. I slowed down and my heart still wanted to leap out of my chest. I only managed 2.2 miles of run-walking (or really walk-running) and let my Oyster card carry me the rest of the way back. Shame.

Since then, I had jumped in the pool (and swam a lot!) and had some personal training sessions. So I laced up and headed out again. This time I went out with the Significant Running Other as a pacemaker. I thought that perhaps I was going too fast after my sessions at the Running School and couldn't sustain the pace. Oh how deluded. The SRO set a steady pace and after one kilometre was just a red dot in the distance while I wrestled with the boom boom in my chest.

So what now? A slow progress of run-walking with a heart rate monitor running at an even pace and walking when the beeps are annoying. Or the boom boom gets too much. I can't even remember how I started running, as I was walking so much at the time (nine miles to work every summer morning) so it's really like being a beginner.

I've pulled together a five-week training plan (this is why training plans should always be done in pencil) which involves a personal training session twice a week, some swimming and some LSD replication on the bike. This isn't drug taking but doing something equivalent to a long slow distance run. Last week I spent an hour on the gym exercise bike with no tv to get myself accustomed to being very bored...

In other news, my feet are still messy. They don't look anything like the nice pic on this blog of happy feet just needing a bit of nice skin on top. I've got what one can only refer to as a pit of skin missing in parts and a nice new rash of pompholyx blisters on the side of my foot that makes wearing any footwear uncomfortable.

I just keep telling myself this is all practice for the 46th kilometre, when it's raining and I am chafing and cold and I just want to go home and I have to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Just one blistered pitted foot in front of the other...