Ten days

That's how long it takes for a fit person to become a lardass again. Or at least it does in my experience.

I last went for a run ten days ago. Various things like having to go north for a funeral got in the way, so I can muster up a better excuse than the usual 'I couldn't be arsed' again. But the last time I did go for a run, it was good. I was beginning to feel fit, though not at my peak back in the Roslin years, when I used to bicycle to Leith every morning to go to work (and more importantly, bicycle back again, which was uphill all the way). Something must have gone wrong though, because the next day I could hardly walk. My right thigh felt like someone had given me a dead leg, and since my little brother was four hundred miles away, I had to assume that I'd pulled something that wasn't meant to be pulled.

Silly me.

So for the first half of last week I did no strenuous exercise at all, and only minimal non-strenuous stuff. Then I went north. I figured that if I gave myself a week to heal properly, then I might not end up making things worse the next time I went out.

Which was this afternoon.

Running's a mug's game, really. I always used to joke that if I was in that much of a hurry I'd take a car. But my university days physique has slumped somewhat, and I now have to work a little harder than drinking five nights a week to keep from needing bigger trousers. I prefer mountain biking, but it takes too long (a good ride uses up four hours - running only an hour and a half), and as I go out alone, I have this horrible feeling that one day I'm going to come off and land in a rocky place away from mobile phone signals and hard to find on foot or from the air. I've tried showing the Horse Doctor where I'm going on a map, but she gets a bit stereotypically female about maps, shrugs and says 'whatever - Gareth will know where to find you.' Gareth is the farm foreman, and at the moment he's in Australia, which wouldn't do my slowly bleaching bones any good.

So I run. Or at least I try to. Today was more walking, wheezing and coughing up balls of phlegm than running, at least on the outward, uphill leg. Coming home's better, as it's mostly downhill. I still took ten minutes longer than the last time.

At the moment my thigh feels all right. Only time will tell whether or not I've pulled again.