Time to take five

Just when I think work can't get any more stressful it always does. How does that happen?

I've always stuck to the advice 'listen to your body' when training and this week has been one of those occasions when the body says no. I'm not sure how much of it is stress and how much is physical, but whatever the cause, I've backed off temporarily and allowed myself a rest.

Last week I continued with my stairs and ten mile runs but was finding them tough. On Friday work got in the way of any training so I had an involuntary rest; not a bad thing as I had a 20 mile run planned for Saturday morning.

There was a traffic jam caused by road works on my way to Devon which added an extra 40 mins to my journey; a shame as I'd been looking forward to a reasonably long and relaxing evening catching up with my folks.

On Saturday I was up bright and early at 4:45 for a 20 mile road run. It was still dark but the local bird life was up and in full swing with the dawn chorus. I'm not sure what happened but after about 5 miles I just ground to a halt. I tried to make myself carry on but couldn't and walked home feeling the cold. I'd been thinking about work and the sea gulls were making a din, a noise I would usually enjoy. I noticed my head was aching when I got back to bed so maybe I just had a low grade migraine.

Apart from the bad run I had a nice relaxing weekend which involved plenty of Mum's wonderful cooking and baking. We went for a walk to the seafront on Saturday afternoon; it's always fascinating to see how the pebbles have shifted (they shift a long way) and watch the water flowing into or out of the mouth of the Axe depending on the tide. A certain amount of pebble hurling to see who can make the most pleasing sounding splosh is an essential part of the experience too!

On Sunday I skipped the morning run but I took the boys to the City of Exeter HASH (I had planned to do both). The HASH was on Woodbury Common, the sun was out and there was a big group so we had a great time. It was a good opportunity to get a bit of running in but with no pressure and plenty of stops.