Sinful Sunday: Metronome

Before lockdown, I was running roughly three times a week, depending on weather, work, hockey, and my general enthusiasm levels. Each outing followed a similar pattern: start sluggishly, grimace and set my face against the wind and rain, find some sort of easy stride, wait till I hit two miles, then head home and breathe a (heavy) sigh of relief at the sight of our front gate. It’s fair to say I wasn’t loving life on the trail over autumn and winter.

However, since lockdown my entire approach to the routine of running has changed – or rather, it’s returned to roughly where it was in 2015 and 2016, when I was training for marathons in Berlin and Warsaw. Not in distance terms (not yet anyway…), nor in speed – I’m lucky if I do 5K in 23 minutes right now, whereas 3-4 years ago I was consistently sub-22 minutes – but perhaps more importantly I feel like I’ve found my rhythm again.

That’s undoubtedly due in large part to forcing myself onto a strict schedule: run every other day, without fail – no excuses. That started out as a way to stave off the detrimental health impact of inactivity, but quickly became an important way of establishing some sort of basic physical routine, without which I think I’d find lockdown much more of a struggle. With the days lengthening, I tend to head out early evening in the last of the sunshine, and wind my way through the streets of Croydon, which are still fresh and unfamiliar enough that each slight change in route brings with it new neighbourhoods and parks to discover.

I’ve also pushed up my average run time. From struggling to hit 2.5 miles, I’m now consistently over three, and occasionally topping four. Not much in the grand scheme of things, but a great platform if I do want to start training for events again. It’s also helped to smooth out my pace. I’ve never been the fastest runner, but when I’m going out regularly I’m metronomic in my pacing. During my last block of marathon training, I’d reguarly finish 10-12 mile runs and check my mile splits to find that they were all clustered within 20-30 seconds of each other. Once I hit my stride, I can keep it going till I’m ready to stop.

And none of that sounds very interesting, but for me it’s a hugely welcome and encouraging return to a relationship with running that feels healthy, positive, and beneficial to other areas of my life, after months – years really – where that often wasn’t the case. I’m not all the way back there yet, and after the onset of mild asthma in 2017 I’m actually not sure I’m capable of finding my previous levels of speed and stamina, but I feel much closer to who I was in that respect.

At the heart of it, I guess, is that I’m looking forward to running again – and enjoying it once I’m out there. It’s definitely helped me manage the strains of lockdown, and it’s also been an extremely useful tool in a low-level battle with body image that I didn’t realise till quite recently that I was fighting. I don’t like feeling unfit or inactive; I don’t like the way it makes my body look or feel. Without really being able to put a finger on why, I’d been starting to avoid mirrors and had lost a lot of the simple enjoyment I normally get from being naked around the house. I don’t want to make a big deal of that – others have it far worse, and I’m not seeking reassurance of any kind – but it’s been really nice to feel once more like I want to look at my body…and have others look at it!

So when I took this week’s Sinful Sunday photo before my run yesterday, all those thoughts were sort of floating around my head. I stood in a pool of golden, late afternoon sun, next to our bedroom window, and let my phone camera perv over my naked body. I smiled at how strong and fit it felt, and enjoyed being able to watch the self-timer count down without flinching at what I saw on the screen. Best of all, I told myself that I was going to try and hold on to this feeling; that even after lockdown ends, I need to cling to this rediscovered love of running, and let it work its magic on the way I think and feel about other things too.