Setbacks

Apologies for my lack of posting this week. After my fastest (so far) two mile run last Monday, the Running Gods obviously decided I was starting to get far too happy about this running malarkey. Their course of action this time was to send a large dose of the cold my way and so I face my first setback. I can't describe how frustrating it has been not to be able to keep up with my plan. I missed three scheduled runs. In the grand scheme not much but right now it feels huge to me. I had been finding it easier and easier to motivate myself to go for a run and I worry, now that I'm better, that I will struggle to get back into the swing of things. Not to mention I am now a whole week behind schedule!

Still, stubborn as I am, I refuse to let the Running Gods win this one. Yes, they kept me out of action for a week and yes, I am behind schedule but this has actually lead me to make some changes to my training plan. I can't catch up the week I missed, I just have to accept that life happens and move on. So instead of making myself feel bad I have taken control and really thought about what the plan was asking me to do. Having been running for a couple of weeks, I know now that the plan that was set out for me isn't realistic. It expects me to go from running three miles to running six in just over one week. When I started out I had no idea if this would be possible or not but having struggled through some three mile runs I can safely say that I am nowhere near ready to run twice that! 

So, instead of trying to fit myself to the plan and feeling bad when I don't match up, I am making the plan fit me. My first race is a 5k in July so the focus of the next month's training will be to get to the point where I feel comfortable running that distance and hopefully do it at a pace that makes me happy (aiming for the 30 minute mark but no promises!). Between now and race day I can't imagine I will be running any further than five miles at a time. Does that mean I won't have run the roughly eighty miles I thought I would at the beginning of training? Yes. Do I see that as a setback? Slightly (but only cause I'm a pessimist!). One thing I have learned: setbacks aren't always completely negative. This one has helped me understand that what I need doesn't always necessarily fit into tidy little colour-coded boxes. 

Although let's not lie, my new plan will obviously be colour-coded. Life is too short for greys and whites!