Timing matters

I had such good intentions of running this morning.  I set my alarm last night for 6.45 with the idea that I'd get up, get dressed, and get out before I woke up enough to start thinking of excuses to stay in bed.  However, in my sleep deprived state I somehow managed to set the alarm for 6.15 instead; you'd think that I would have welcomed the chance to do the run a bit earlier so that I could then have gotten ready for work without rushing. 

But no.  I fell back asleep, woke up again at 7, and laid there for 15 minutes thinking of excuses to stay in bed.  Chief amongst those excuses was how perishingly cold it was in the room.  You'd think that I'd remember to change the timing on the central heating for the mornings when I have to run early.  But no to that as well.  Anyway, as long as I was out the door by 7.30, I would have just about enough time for a 5 mile run, so up I got.

The first task was to tape my achilles tendon and calf.  Unfortunately, it was SO COLD in the room that the tape didn't really adhere to my icy legs.  I tried several times, but eventually I gave up and hoped that my running leggings would hold the tape in place until my legs warmed up.  I layered up, dressing more for how cold it was in the room than for what it might be like outside.  (You'd think that I would have learned not to do this but, again, no.)  I struggled into my slightly too tight Gore mid-layer which left me with rucked up sleeves from the two underneath layers.  I spent five minutes trying to de-ruck myself without success.  Time was passing, so I told myself I'd just have to ignore the t-shirt sleeves that were bunched in my armpits.

The next step was to find my gloves, buff, and headband which shouldn't have been an issue as I've organised my running gear so that these items are ALWAYS in the same place because I got tired of never being able to find them.  Except, I couldn't find the headband.  I searched through the running box four times, in the pockets of my running jackets, looked under the table in case those bad cats had thought it was a mouse and dragged it away to savage it, and looked under the chair cushions because that's where missing things often end up.  Nope.  Nowhere to be found.

By the time I left the house (headband-less), it was almost 8.00.  I thought about not going for the run because there was no way I had time for the full 5 miles but after all of that hassle getting dressed, I wasn't going to go through reverse hassle without something to show for it.  So, flexible as always, I decided to just do 3 miles.  After all, something is better than nothing.

Even though my legs felt okay and I managed the target pace with ease, it wasn't a great run.  I was distracted by the t-shirt sleeves that had migrated so far into my armpits that I couldn't put my arms down to my sides.  I was distracted by how tight the mid-layer was across my stomach and how it was trapping sweat there.  I was distracted by the feeling of the kinesio tape slowly peeling away from my leg.  And I was distracted by how heavy my footstrikes were (almost, but not quite, like I was having a temper tantrum).  Plus, I was annoyed and vaguely panicked at not being able to do the whole 5 miles, as though the missing two miles would be the difference between making it to the start line in London or not.  I'm not sure what universe my head was in today, but it wasn't the same one as my body.

Time to take a deep breath, regroup, and double-check the setting on the alarm clock.  Tomorrow is another day.