I could so easily give up, right now.  I’m unfocussed and feeling in desperate need of a rest. I don’t work well without a schedule, and it’s too early to start my marathon training. My hamstrings are tight, my glutes are tight, my legs are draggy and dull.  I’m naturally drawn to firesides with bottles of red wine breathing seductively beside them.  Cold, wet mornings really don’t hold quite the same allure.

Nonetheless, I have this great big marathon thing to do.  Giving up really isn’t an option.  So last night, I dragged my sorry carcass to my second ever body pump class.  It wasn’t as hard as it was last week, and I don’t *think* I dropped my weights… and certainly there was no sign of the DOMs when I got out of bed this morning, so that’s all good.

I’d decided to run to work.  I persuaded the lovely and ever-tolerant Mr P to take me up to Bladon and drop me just outside Blenheim Palace, and my plan was to run gently down the A44, my OM mountain marathon backpack loaded with work clothes and…. well, work.

About a mile in, I ran past a signal crayfish.  On the pavement.  Next to a busy main road.  With no water anywhere near.  As you do.  I stopped to take a photo, and felt quite proud of myself.  Look at me, stopping to take photos on a run! Being all relaxed and stuff!  Running for fun!!   I wondered if it was alive, and prodded it, tentatively, with my phone.  Not only was it alive, it was an arsey little f*cker, and it began waving its claws at me, clashing them all (and you know, a crayfish has a *lot* of claws) and looking as threatening as a mollusc can look, when its eyes refuse to point in the same direction.  Arsey and ugly – with way too many legs to co-ordinate, and eyes that don’t point in the same direction.  That pretty much sums up today’s run.

I stopped and walked, and ran again, and walked again.  I was slower than the proverbial turtles wading through treacle.  Nothing about it was fun or easy.  I never found my mojo, hit my groove or found any of the wonderful moments that make us runners go back and back again to the road.  In all, I did about 5.4 miles.  It was slow and ugly, but I did it.  Next time will be better.  Or maybe the time after that.  But I will not give in to my lazy impulses! I am gnashing my claws at the sofa! (Mr P suggests I might be feeling a bit crabby…. and if I don’t get Sebastian’s “Under the Sea” out of my head soon, he’ll be right!!)