Recognition and Lots More Running.

So, yay, VMGiving is Retweeting me! I may even get a bit of recognition in their fundraising blog! How cool is that?

It's nice to get a little bit of recognition now and again. People can scoff all they want at people tweeting and facebooking away about the miles they run, but we do it for a reason. Running, unlike many sports, isn't team enabled. Your competitor is always you. Yes, I know, people run in groups and for charities, but in the end it's your time. Not your team's time, not your charities time.

Your time.

So that's why loads of people don't run. It's hard, it's monotonous, and it's you against you. Someone is always BOUND to be faster, put in a better PR, and finish looking glorious instead of like they've been run over.

Thus, we runner's go for our little solo happy achievements and use tools to find encouragement to continue to race ourselves. I ran 14.65 miles yesterday through surprisingly good winter weather for England. I tweeted it. Sometimes when I tweet people tweet back "Good going!" or the ever-present English, "Well done!" And I smile and feel good about myself. I'm not out to make people feel bad because they aren't running (I am, matter of fact, a surprisingly terrible runner) but so that people know:

Yes, I'm actually training for a marathon. I'm taking it seriously. I'm raising funds. And my knee feels stiff.

Okay, so the last one might count as TMI *but* I'd rather people know I'm human and not super-human. Though, I think if I became super-human I'd really want to tweet about that.

Moving on.

I did make it through my run yesterday, but with a lovely and surprising stiffness showing up at about the point where my brain said, "Um. So hey and stuff. Did you know you've never actually ran this far?" It's in the knee that got injured in my only car accident - in which my own car hit me. (I was outside of it, swear.) Did I cry? No. I'm still actively working on researching ways to cope with this. It doesn't hurt that much, but I don't want to make it worse. So a rethinking is happening.

In related news I can say that Oxford has AMAZING canal and river walks. Now that the water has gone down I spent quite a lot of my jogging near the river. Peaceful and people happy to move out of your way (unlike running near the shops). I'm trying to see if I can create a run in which 90% of it is out on these paths. Definitely gets me distracted from the fact that I'm running this insane amount of distance.

So this week is going to be a lot of reflection on my current status so I can work on improving. I'm also going to hit the Virgin Money Giving forum and try to motivate people to raise for what they believe in. I encourage anyone who has any ideas to get on as well.

Peace out.