Stepping On To The Same Path Twice

Heraclitis said “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

For the path will never be quite the same and when you return to it you will be changed.

In a similar vein, history is said to not exactly repeat itself but it does often rhyme and my running life is throwing rhymes at me that are awfully familiar.

Looking back at one of the first entries in this blog I see a write up of my first parkrun and it resonates all too closely with my current sorry attempts to regain my running fitness.

I set off and feel all creaky, fat and unfit.

It eases a little and I start to feel slightly better after about a half kilometre.

I reach 1 kilometre and am suddenly fighting for oxygen. The gasping must be quite alarming for passers-by and it is probably only their desire to not get involved that stops them bundling me into their car and taking me to hospital.

I push through, telling myself that I’ve been here before and it gets better, and thankfully it does. Breathing eases off and at about 2.5 kilometres I feel great.

Then everything starts to become grim. I now feel as if I am running uphill into a strong wind. Muscles are complaining and my brain is telling me that I should stop, so as not to injure myself.

I mentally check through all the moving parts. There are no sharp pains, nothing that would indicate that I am heading for imminent self destruct.

I conclude that the brain is being a tad overly dramatic and that it should jolly well tone it down a bit.

And this is maybe the difference – the path back to fitness is very similar to the one I trod just a few years ago when I first started to run. The difference this time is that I have experienced it before and so can bring that experience to bear on the process. The path may be the same but the man has changed.

This all sounds ever so level headed and balanced and all that but it isn’t doing me much good  as regards progress. My 5k times now are about the same as they were when I first ran parkrun and 10k, half marathons, marathons and 100k runs look to be all just crazy talk to me now.

Ah well

Baby steps, baby steps…