I'd woken up with a feeling that it was going to be tough, and had procrastinated accordingly. Football on Thursday had been physically difficult; my usual swim on Friday night had also been a real struggle, using those upper body muscles that are most affected by my MS and are consequently the weakest. It doesn't take a genius to add those warning signs together and to deduce that my usual 4-or-so miles before lunch on a Saturday morning might prove difficult.
Sitting it out was clearly not an option: being able to read the warning signs doesn't necessarily mean that I was going to listen to the signals my body was trying to give me..... besides, although it may sound counter-intuitive, but sometimes exercising when I feel fatigued helps me chase off the fatigue. I don't know how that works, but sometimes it really does. Perhaps the feeling of fatigue is self-perpetuating.
Anyway, after I'd got up and had my hair cut and wandered around the farmer's market, picking up some 24-month old Lincolnshire Poacher, some Old Spot sausage meat and a rare breed beef pie, I reluctantly headed home, pulled on my running kit and set off out of the door.
It hurt.
My feet were numb; my legs were dead; my hands were tingling and my shoulders were aching. I hauled myself around 4.23 miles and almost every step seemed to take a real effort of will.
But you know what? For all that it was hard, I still managed to run my normal route in 37 minutes and 18 seconds, at a pace of 8.49 minutes/mile. Alright, so it's not a personal best or anything, and as slow as I've done in a while, but it's still more than two minutes faster than the time I managed on the same run this time last year - 39 minutes and 27 seconds at a pace of 9.18 minutes/mile.
It just goes to show that
...besides, I like a good moan. Facebook friends should look out for tomorrow's: I'm hoping to get out on a run at lunchtime, so it should be with you by about half one.
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