Considering the three running books I have on my bedside table at the moment, What I talk about when I talk about running from Haruki Murakami was the one I started to read posteriorly but finished first. Not just because it was shorter and easier to read, but more important, it talks about how running can change your entire life’s dynamic. If you are looking for training sheets and diet schedules, this book is not for you. However, you will actually enjoy this quick read if your interests lies in understanding deeper the feelings and issues of a successful professional (in this case a worldwide best-selling writer) trying to balance his routine around working, ageing, traveling and running (and triathloning and ultra-maratoning and etc, etc, etc – this guy can do anything, it is incredible).

Personally speaking, when Murakami talked about his writing activities I found a little bit monotonous because I was more interested in the running parts. Nonetheless, after a while you start to understand how his job as a writer was intrinsically connected to his athlete aspect. You cannot talk about one and leave the other aside. The necessity to overcome barriers, walls and targets were equally important in both sides.

Anyway, it’s not because it is a book focused more on life than running that you will not be able to get some very good tips on the way. For example, I am extremely conscious of how sluggish I am - ‘runningly’ speaking. There are some days the fact that I am slower than others (honestly, I occasionally feel that I am slower than EVERYONE else) really annoys me. Seeing all these older and heavier people passing me like they are not even making an effort drives me insane sometimes. But Murakami talks about how he dealt with the same preconception. It is reassuring and empowering to have a guy who once finished the course Athens-Marathon under excruciating conditions accepting and talking openly about feeling the same embarrassment.

Summarising this topic, he said that some people are slower just because that’s how we are. Different human beings with different body structures. That's all. Getting annoyed and upset it is not going to help – or change – anything. Denial just makes things worse. Besides, it is not that some people are 'slow', most of the time it is just because some bodies take longer to warm-up. That’s how he figured it out that he was doing right running long-distances. If your muscles take 5km to heat up, running short distances will be always frustrating because your body will not even have time to reach its full potency before the race is over.

Click here for the book details

In my opinion, the chapter he talked about his experience running a 62-mile ultra-marathon was the best one. I was so curious about the end I couldn’t stop even when my train got to the final destination. I wish I could stay longer sitting there just to be able to finish. You can feel in your bones the pain he felt during the course, the anguish. “Even though my legs were working now, the thirteen miles from the thirty-four-mile rest stop to the forty-seventh mile were excruciating.” OMG. 100km. I will not say anything else about this chapter (and the book) because I don’t want to spoil anyone’s curiosity any longer, but it is a book definitely worth reading.

This past month was spent away not just from blogging, but from all my running and training as well. Do you know when that succession of unfortuitous events happens?  Yes, it did. One trip, two exams and a f*cking terrible flu drove me away from any kind of physical activity I could think of for entire four weeks.

First, a weekend in Amsterdam. Cool. In my deepest dreams I even considered running there, in the morning, to keep my training schedule. However, my willpower is obviously not that strong. “That’s ok, I am doing a marathon training to run a half-marathon, I am far advanced on my calendar”.

Of course I couldn’t predict that I would get the flu there and have to stay in bed for a week. Fact that overlapped with my final exams’ week. Great. Super great. By the way, the cold persisted for 2 weeks.

In the meantime I had a 10k run in Richmond (details in a future post) that I completely sucked. My time was horrible. I was feeling tired, breathless and useless. And to make bad things a nightmare, my cold got worse. That was the cherry on the cake. Result: one more week without running.

So the extremely-cautious-meticulous-tempered person that was ahead of schedule became a whole month late. Today was the first time I felt healthy enough to be able to go back to my regular training. I was supposed to be doing week-7 now (4, 6, 4 and 12 miles consecutively) but, hesitantly, I decided to go back to week-5 where I should run 3, 5, 3, 10 miles again and start back from there. I am still not feeling 100% yet and, in addition, it would be too pretensious to think that one month without any kind of exercise wouldn’t affect my performance.

I have to confess it was very, very, very hard (did I say hard?). First because after one month of indulging myself with crappy food – and delicious Dutch nutella waffles – made me gain 2kg. I have never been a slim person (lol) so every kilo that I lose helps me to feel lighter when I am running. But nooop. My legs at the moment feel like massive chunks of wood. Hippopotamus legs, I call them. And I am not being mean or too critic to myself, I need to accept the true and pay the price of undisciplined 30 days of food rebellion.

Chunky legs are actually cute if you are a baby hippo :-)

Second, because of the flu, I can feel that my cardio capacity was affected as well. While running, my heart rate used to stay stable on 165 and never go above 170. Today my average was 175 and – I don’t know how I managed to stay alive – it reached 188 more than once. I was trying to keep my pace at 9km/h but after 2.5km I started coughing like an old lady. That heavy and disgusting cough where you can hear the throat squirming.

Anyway, in spite of my hippo legs and disgusting lungs I am back to business :-) In the end it felt damn good to be able to run the expected 5km regardless my low energy levels. Besides, considering the situation, my speed was not even that bad. I know it will take some time for me to feel completely back on track, but I will not give up. This month will serve as a good reminder of how easy is to throw away months of hard work if you get a little bit careless and irresponsible. Self-control is a bitch you can never let loose.