Thursday I was feeling demoralised. Nietzsche said that you can have as much joy in your life as you are willing to tolerate sorrow and if that’s right then I have had a few days of being at the bottom of this sine curve.
An alternate way of looking at it might be to say that March had arrived (almost on Thursday) but the weather has not yet improved sufficiently to go outside without protection against hypothermia.
A run with Daren was a perfect tonic and with the same four high-performance layers as last week to keep me warm, we set out into the gloomy morning.
Runs with Daren can’t always be full of laughter, but it’s pretty much impossible not to have some invoked as a result of our discussions! I forget why we laughed, but we did laugh, especially when I almost landed face-first into the thick mud at the bottom of Wolstonbury Hill.
I almost wish that my hand hadn’t saved the day as it would have been a way funnier photo.
My subdued mood made the Tank Tracks seem even tougher than normal… Daren chose this time to nonchalantly share that our 10km circuit involved climbing 1000 feet… just three circuits would equate to climbing Snowdon.
I couldn’t help thinking again about Cloud Atlas as we ran down the hill towards the cars. This run is like a microcosm of life, with tough bits and easier sections and runners who are the same on each circuit, and yet always different.
We were surprised that despite feeling much slower, we dispatched the 6.25 miles in 1:15, the same as the previous week.