With blood taste in my mouth

Like a little bird that is about to take its first jump off the nest, I hoped that if I moved fast enough, I would fly. Instead, I felt like I had shoved a sword down my throat and was slashing around with it with every step I took.

Track intervals are the worst. You have no hills to blame for your poor performance. Or for only running 4 x 1000 metres while you had planned on doing 5 x 1000 metres.

Well. There was a strong-ish headwind I could blame, but, on the other hand, there was also a strong-ish tailwind, depending on where on the track you were currently running.

I spend my days dreaming of lazy long runs. Of blue, cloudless skies. Of a summer that seems so infuriatingly, depressingly elusive.

I spend my nights dreaming of flying away to another country. To a big city by night. To a seaside resort. Somewhere I can just relax.

Lately, my days have been filled with work and thoughts of work. They have been cold and cloudy and grey. Fun things I've done have felt hurried, almost obligatory, as if to compensate for the less fun things, and have thus not been as much fun as they should have been.

How much of the blood taste in my mouth is real? How much of it is the taste of aversion to pushing myself even further during a demanding period of my life?

I cut back from 5 to 4 intervals. Take off my shoes, jog around the track 3 times barefoot. Then I put my shoes back on and jog home. The clouds are gone, but the sun is on its way down. What does it matter. It casts a light so warm and golden that I can't feel the cold air on my skin. A light that washes the blood taste from my mouth.