Eluding Tuonela

Despite the good rhythm, didn't get the start to the exercise week I wanted because my cat died yesterday. He was old, and I saw this coming for a while now, but you're never prepared to lose an important member of your family of 16 years.

My father drove me to the vet, 11k from my house. It took a while so I asked him to just go home. When I eventually came back out, I was so distressed that I just wanted to run, so I did. I ran -- in jeans and a jacket -- the 11k back home, getting a bit of chafing and properly wet as it was pretty cold and raining. The run messed up my Garmin training and VO2 data but at least I got some of the pain out of the system before getting back home.

I think getting some more proper training in this week will be super important. Not sure if I'm able to do that, though.

I shouldn't be surprised that the proper motivation to start being more active came from a woman.

But that aside, I finally feel like being (almost) on the track again and it's a great feeling. I've been steadily pushing the weekly kilometers in preparation for the 4x4x48 challenge and the leg issue has been marginally smaller now that I found a way to stretch it daily.

The weather has now turned proper cold. It was freezing this morning and only 3 C during my night run. Had to wear gloves for the first time this season. Cold weather is great for running as long as it doesn't rain. Unfortunately, it's also been raining every single day for many days now. But at least I'm getting regularly out of the door again.

I feel that I've finally found back to at least a semiregular running rhythm. Managed to run a total of 35k this week which is a good start for building up to a ~60-70k to make me ready for the 4x4x48 challenge.

I've been searching for a good 4 mile (~6k) loop route that would start very near, and I think I've found it. I'm worried that it might be too boring and repetitive but there are not that many options to be too picky -- especially in autumn/winter time.

Now I have very few excuses left, I need to start raising my weekly running mileage to get the kilometers up and my body ready for the challenge. I'm still not putting on any deadline but it'll be soon.

It's been really difficult to get back the motivation for proper daily activities. This has been going on for too long already so I decided that the first day of the month would be a good day to re-start. Good but hard run today.

The nice forest paths and dirt roads are slowly turning into not very fun running routes as the rain keeps coming down. It's also getting very dark very early so most of the nice summer routes are getting almost impossible now. I also want to start finding new better routes for the winter but part of me doesn't want to let go. Why, oh why, our summers are so damn short?!

The winter is coming. It's getting colder. Today I ran a 12k long run in about 5 C weather. Didn't yet put on gloves but soon I'll have to. I've been scouting new routes that will be available the whole winter so I don't need to guess routes when it's -25C and half a meter of snow.

First time running after almost a week off felt horrible, I barely managed to get 5k done. It's really surprising how fast your running ability deteriorates just by not running.