Only my cough is productive, or running as self indulgence

Peckham Rye daffodils on my cycle ride to work

03.03.2015
Day 322

Cycle commute: home to Waterloo Bridge. And back. A brisk walk at lunch-time. Some stretching/yoga

Slowly getting back to normal. The morning cycle ride had the congested lungs heaving themselves about in my chest like water balloons. The diesel-laden air, and the cold, served as an expectorant, so as I pedalled, I coughed. Productively. The reddened nose joined in with the production. The four layers worn to protect me from the elements caused a patchy overheating – only on the torso – my legs being rather chilly. To cap it all, literally, my warm Orkney woolly hat kept being tipped off my head by my hair and the buff round my neck. Altogether my bike and I made rather shambolic and juicy progress to work.

It is better to cycle commute, though, and not just because it saves me about a fiver in train fares. It provides an outdoorsy start to a day at a desk being not very busy or important. Funny how it goes. In my diary this day was to have been spent in perpetual motion. My fitness threshold could have been properly tested if I'd started at 8am with Erik and the others, cycled on to the office to put in a couple of hours, then cycled to Tower 42 to race up 932 stairs, then cycled back to the office to continue editing Easter recipes, beforte cycling over to Ladywell for the evening track session.

I do not think I would have been able to do all of the above, even if I'd been in the prime of health, it would probably not have been wise, either. There's a fine line between extreme fitness and lunacy, or rather doing too much in the name of fitness – none of it very well – for the sake of....what? Who am I trying to impress?
My sister sent me a get well message, which read:
'take a little care of yourself, there's no shame in taking things easy!'
No shame! How lovely. It is such a different attitude to the one my husband tends to favour, which is (in a nutshell) that all this fitness training is a self-indulgence. Both have a point. I train, I enter races, I write this blog to prove how great I am, which is no doubt an annoyance to people who think that working hard for one's family is every human's number one duty.
On the other hand, because running makes me a happier person, isn't that good for the family at large? To have a rosy, happy mother, sister, auntie and grandmother around, who doesn't (ahem) complain about her health (present week excepted)?
At 52, the energy and speed you can muster feels so extraordinary. When you consistently record better times than women and men half your age, you feel suddenly special. It makes you wonder  how much more extraordinary you could be if you slept, ate, trained like an athlete. I have not managed even a week of living like a proper athlete, yet, and in about eight weeks this blog will reach its finale. Whatever time I record on 26 April, this blog will be a useful reference point in the days of reckoning thereafter.