Who (self) cares?

I had a really lax May when it comes to running.

And really, really missed the trails.

Including the 25k I ran for the virtual Rugged Raccoon at the beginning of the month and the ~32km I ran for the Tail Chaser Challenge 12-hour on the 23rd, I only put in a total of 88km. 55 measly miles. I haven't run that little since August of 2018, when I was trying to recover after running for 12 idiotic hours on a seriously messed up ankle.

It'd be nice to say that's all water under the bridge now..

I did take a couple of weeks off completely (though I did a lot of walking and hiking - a total of almost 80km for the month) while I tried to come to grips with a spinal injury, but the lovely weather - which took its sweet time arriving, let me tell you - lured me back out.

I absolutely refuse to miss phlox season!

I haven't been super consistent about it - I ran Wednesday and Thursday of last week after a few days off to try to rid myself of the soreness from Tail Chaser, but despite intentions to hit the trails on Saturday I ended up spending all afternoon and evening with Tanker cleaning out our garage.

It took 6 hours. There was a mummified mouse corpse. Many decisions were made. It was long past time.

This is the AFTER photo

Vast improvement

There is no "before" photo that does it justice, but this is the pile of junk we couldn't re-purpose, recycle, or re-home.

With that nasty task out of the way, I was free to head down to a favourite and recently re-opened spot for some beautiful, sunny trail therapy on the last day of the month.

The bridge is a dead giveaway for where we went..

The last time I ran here was on snowshoes!

While I was out prancing around in the woods, Tanker was on the lake enjoying his new toy, picked up earlier that afternoon:

They say money can't buy happiness, but it can buy my sweetheart an angling kayak, and that seems pretty close.

After I ran for about an hour, I grabbed my paddleboard off the car and headed down to meet him at the dock. He let me take a whirl in his new yak, then I hopped on my board so we could go for a lovely cruise around the lake through the gorgeous evening sun.

We've both waited such a long time to paddle together

At only 13c/55f it wasn't the warmest day, but it certainly was beautiful

So basically the perfect Sunday, right?

Not exactly.

See, my right ankle is still angry. My back still gets grumpy. My muscles and joints get sore from my exertions and my sedentary job. Yet, I do very little to help myself feel any better.

Mentally therapeutic? Aboslutely. Physically? Not so much..

I've realised that since the beginning of the pandemic - when it became apparent that most of this race season was going to be a wash - I've stopped taking proper care of myself.

I haven't foam rolled. I stopped taking some helpful supplements. I've been eating too much and putting on weight, which makes the bit of running I have done harder on my body.

I haven't respected the work I have put in, simply because it is less than I have done in the past. I mean, some of my runs recently have been less than my usual minimum of 5k, so who cares about them? Who needs to worry about recovery when you're only running 20km per week?

However, if there's one thing that the Going the (Social) Distance Challenge group on facebook taught me, it's that there are huge numbers of runners out there for whom my 88km of running in May would be a huge accomplishment. at an average of almost 3km per day for the full month (despite my 2 weeks off), it's more than a lot of people will run in their lifetime.

It hasn't all been easy mileage, either.

I've been paying the price for my neglect - while I've managed to string together runs on each of the past 5 days, it's felt very difficult. The heat is partly to blame, as well as the de-training effect from the time I took off, but I have to face the fact that I haven't been making things any easier for myself.

Carting around a belly in the hot sun while stiff and sore isn't much fun.

So, I'm going to try to do better. I'm going to make an effort to respect the running I do, even if I feel it's horribly slow and I need to stop to catch my breath here and there. I don't have to be the same runner I was last year at this time: I just need to resolve to do my best, and to take care of the body that lets me get out there to enjoy the sunshine and flowers.

It doesn't have to be epic - every little lunch run counts.

I challenge all of you to do something nice for your body this weekend, whether it's taking an unplanned rest day when you're fatigued, foam rolling a problem spot, improving your nutrition by focusing on increasing your intake of fruit and vegetables, or just getting to bed a half hour earlier to allow yourself some extra repair & regeneration time.