More enthusiasm than sense

I realised this evening that I’ve managed to line up at least one sporting event a month until October this year, with the exception of this month and September – and for September I’m waiting on a ballot.

I’m not totally sure how this happened, and I’m not convinced it’s a good thing to have so much planned, because I’m really, really good at putting silly amounts of pressure on myself. But I see events I want to do (or have already done and want to re-do) and get overexcited and sign up to do ALL THE THINGS. The upside is that the 70.3 training (iffy though it’s been of recent – illness, tha’ knows, and burnout) means I should be able to cope with everything else this year quite nicely.  The (other) downside is that I could probably afford the deposit for a house if I didn’t keep doing all this stuff.

If I can get my head around organising the actual TRIP to Exmoor, I should be doubly fine. I hate organising travel/hotels/trains etc. I am not, at heart, an organised person. I’ll book things and sort stuff out if I have to, if the people I’m planning things with are less organised than I am. Coffee Monster is organised in the sense that his part of our office is tidy, he hangs his clothes up, he puts things away, while I leave my crap strewn around. But when it comes to sorting out flights and so forth, he’s a last-minuter, while I like to know that things are booked and done well in advance so that I can forget about them until the day we use the tickets. I get stressed. It’s part of my charm.* (*It’s not.)

Ideally, every race I enter would be right outside the front door. If I could drive, life would be easier; but right now balancing my job, my volunteer work (why, yes, I do do stuff that’s not entirely for my own gain) and my actual job is stretching me to my limit. Ok, not my limit, but I’m not able to be as lazy as I’d like.  I don’t know where I’d fit driving lessons. Also, see the aforementioned money issue. Add in other things like trying to sort out a new passport (after I damaged mine beyond use yet again), sorting the pooches out with vaccinations and somewhere to stay, learning how to change a tyre, life in general. Well. I’m barely keeping up. (It’s my nephew’s birthday in a couple of days and I remembered just in time. Just.)  In a couple of years I’d like to do an Ironman (I think – ask me again after Wimbleball) and I think I’ll have to go on sabbatical to manage it.

Anyway, I did the TWHarriers Tunbridge Wells Half Marathon a couple of weeks ago, and it was nice to have a solid measure of how much I’m improving. I believe I’ve said in the past that I am very, very slow at all these things. I shaved ten minutes off my PB for that run, which moved me from the realms of ‘almost last’ into the land of ‘just kinda slow’. In turn, that’s made me happier about, and more determined to stick to, my training. So that was a boost.

Unfortunately the boost came right before a massive physical and mental crash which included two days of migraines and has not been much fun at all. But that’s on the way out now, so looking forward the the race-cramped future.

I recommend the TWHalf, by the way.  In the calendar for the past 30 years, it’s very well organised and marshalled and run entirely by (always  smiley, even more remarkable this year, given how cold it was) volunteers. The scenery is outstanding and can be most admired as you climb the mile-long bitch of a hill (Spring Hill) smack in the middle of the race. A smaller, more bearable hill is right before that one, to warm your legs up, and the rest of the run is  ‘undulating’. Happily, it stops feeling undulating and go back to that hill feeling when you hit the teenyweeny uphill bit that is the last 400m. I sincerely hope the description of the challenging hills put you off, because I love this run dearly and I want to keep doing it – but it sells out faster each year .