Minion wisdom

The weather this week has been wonderful. Only kidding. 

I always find that the day called 'the end of British summer time' on the calendar is a bittersweet moment. The morning generally goes quite well. That extra hour a day that everyone is always going on about, well, here's your chance! Today that actually happens! Then as the day goes on, and it becomes apparent that even with the extra hour in the day you are still incapable of managing to do everything that you were supposed to do (i.e. you stayed in bed for the hour), your good mood dips a little lower, and by 3 pm, along with daylight, it goes out.

Wow, this blog is turning into a lovely little ray of sunshine. Oh no, that can't be; there will be no more rays of sunshine now until at least March.

Well, I think I've pretty much included enough negative thoughts there to send everyone running for a duvet to hide under until spring. So see you then.....

                                      

Ha ha! This means I don't have to come out at all, unless I move to the equator, in summer.

And now, this endless complaining is coming to the point....I promise.....

Once, a few years ago, whilst I was laid up with an injury to my knee (caused by tripping over a tree root during an evening run in the dark in Harringay, for those interested), I lay on the physio's table, whilst she pummeled me to a bruised and weeping heap for half an hour. All for £35 a pop. What I got from this particular £35, as well as a lot of pain and feeling quite sweary, was a nugget of information that has stuck with me since (oh, and she did fix my knee too).

I was complaining about the weather (imagine!) as it was winter, and that the London marathon is in Spring. Why can't it be an Autumn marathon, I bemoaned, then I wouldn't have to be out training all these nights in the dark and the cold and the rain. And I would have seen the tree root, and not fallen over it. Oh, how rubbish everything is.

She fixed me with a look that conveyed I that I would do well to stop complaining right there and then. You can think of it that way, she said. Or, you can get over the fact that it's winter, because you can't do anything about that (short of moving to the equator - see above). You should feel lucky that you have something to aim for to motivate you to get out there on dark nights and train. If you didn't have a spring marathon to aim for, then would you go out? Me - no. She - would you loose fitness? Me - yes. She - when it got to spring, would you then have to start again and build back up, and would that be very difficult? Me - yes.

In short, I think the message here is this. It's winter. Get over it. Get some warm and fluorescent running clothes (Hurrah! An excuse to buy more 80's style running things!). Find something to aim for (something particularly tough, so no slacking). Find a friend/ a club/ yourself. Find an appropriate selection of night time running routes (where you won't get stabbed/ trip over tree routes/ get scared/ lost). And go for a run.

OK, so that message wasn't so short, but anyway. Even the minions have come out!