My motivation after my first run seemed to take a nose dive around the time the clocks went back. I’ve found excuses not to go out and exercise… namely it’s cold or dark or cold and dark.

Anyway, being in my training group means that there really is no space for my continuing slacking. The league table of who’s been running is there for all to see, so me pretending switching my TV over from Hollyoaks to Eastenders or whatever else I’m watching counts as exercise  (a bicep curl maybe) can’t cut it. I also found excuses in Halloween and finishing work late to get out of putting in my paces.

First things first. Overcoming the cold.

I honestly don’t think I’ve run outdoors for prolonged periods during the cold. Cross country was never something I liked so it wasn’t something I would willingly have done during term  cold months. 

To stop using the cold as a new excuse I’ve bought a running jacket, gloves, a hat and long sleeved wick tops. Now even though I run like the fat kid in class, I’ll look like I semi know what I’m doing. 

As I’m an insomniac, it dawned on me Wednesday gone that instead of me wasting time in bed (I wake up unprompted around 5am) after a night of interrupted sleep, I could go out for a run. And so I did. It wasn’t actually that bad, if I say so myself. Running in the morning actually suits me more, and it doesn’t feel like a huge effort. By the time Scandal comes back on it will be taking second place to running (I hope).

The run in the morning gave me a confidence boost as I ended up going to the gym in the evening. I took part in a Functional Training class. Functional Training is a bit like circuits. It reaffirmed that I need to work on my upper body (especially my left side) due to a preexisting injury. I felt really motivated though as the muscle memory took me to the bygone days when I used to go to the gym four times a week.

I’ll definitely be going back to that.

I took a rest day on Thursday and decided to go back to gym on Friday.

I was supposed to go to Circuits but got there about 5 minutes late. Rather than accepting defeat I decided to go to RPM aka Spinning aka who sent me.

After about 10 minutes (aka warm up), the weakest muscles (my glutes) in my body decided to fail me. I could feel my thighs wanting to explode and groaned as I realised there was 35 minutes left of this torture. By the end of the class my ITB was feeling the strain and I prayed I hadn’t done myself an injury.

Not to be put off I went back to the gym today. I did a double (Body Balance and Aqua). I’m tired but feel good (even though it hurts when I laugh or cough). my knee is throbbing so I’ll take it easy tomorrow.

Days to Tough Mudder: 181