Easily amused

One thing there is plenty of time for while we're waiting for the movers to come and pick up our stuff next week is running. I've been toying with the idea of a long run, more or less planning it for this weekend, thinking that it should be doable if I took lots of walking breaks.

Then I got an email from Markus Stålbom inviting me and other past course participants to an interval session on Sunday. How can I say no to that?

My plans changed in a heartbeat to make room for this session. The long run was made shorter. It was also moved to today. The rain was pouring down when I left home, and my clothes were soaking wet within minutes. I had great music in my earphones and a burning desire to test my limits in my heart.

It all went so well. I took a detour on my usual road round (foot sole still sore) to make it longer. I was alone, the few people I met in considerably warmer clothes than I was, carrying colourful umbrellas. I took the seaside cycle path back. Pools of rain water covered it at places, making me splash through them like a child without wellies. Eddie Vedder's heart was breaking but mine was happy, so happy, because my knee was happy and it was raining and the sea smelled of salt and seaweed and I was running.

Then after about 9 km the pain started. I imagined how the blood soaked through my VFF and coloured the water puddles red, as the stitches inside the shoes rubbed against my skin. I tried to ignore it, then I tried to fix it, and when I couldn't fix it I tried to ignore it again. I thought about taking the shoes off and running barefoot. Thought about cutting my feet off and running on the bloody stubs, because surely that would hurt less.

I got home in agony after 15 otherwise wonderful kilometres, struggled to take my VFF off because, wet as they were, they clung on to my feet, and quietly inspected the damage inflicted on my bloody feet as my hair dripped on the floor. Then I rushed off to show J and see if he'd faint.