At least the sun is shining

Two gargantuan work days in a row, with the first one finishing at 9 at night, made me worry: would I be able to find my way home? Recognise J after having been away for so long? And what about the culture shock of switching from work mode to free time mode? Would I even know what to do with myself after the second day was over?

Reality hit me hard when I walked through the door at approximately 10 o'clock Monday night. One of our cats had pissed on the sofa and the whole place smelled of ammoniac. Talk about crash landing. Talk about my fingers twitching spasmodically with felinecidal urges.

This morning was an improvement. I went for a long run around the neighbourhood, and darkness slowly gave way to sunshine as I put kilometre after kilometre behind me. It wasn't a good run, despite the sunshine; my cold is not completely gone yet, and a persistent headwind hit me mercilessly for at least half the distance.

My pace was -as is becoming the norm- higher than it should be. I keep running my long runs at 5.30 min/km, and then struggle through my easy ones. I'd love to say that there are benefits to doing things backwards and going against what pretty much every training programme says I should be doing, but I'd be lying. I run the way I feel like running and at a pace that feels comfortable. There's no thought behind it. I'll probably pay for it one day.