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INVITATION H: C25K WEEK 7 RUN1

Start with – I have been here before….

I have been here before, I remind myself over and over, I have been here before and I have come back. I had just run 4km. It was the first time I had run that far in 23 months. I had ridden my bike out to a 2km straight, flat section of road lined on each side with trees where I knew very few cars would go. With headphones playing an AI created ‘perfect’ running playlist I felt the need to run my heart out, as they say, to leave everything out there. Parts of me burned, lungs, ribs, shoulders, hips. The joints and spaces between bones ached from months of carrying my child awkwardly, picking her up out of her cot while attempting to protect my still too weak stomach muscles, but subsequently overusing my spine. From 8 months of breast feeding hunched over this most precious person and 9 months of pregnancy tipping my centre of balance ever forward. I pushed my misaligned body in an attempt to hit my previous 5km pace, and though I knew how to ask my body to do this, my body could not respond. Like going for the brake on ice. It was no longer there. 

I am imploding in on myself and those I hold closest as my biggest stress release has been absent for so long and instead, I have had to sit with all the feels, oh man, there have been so many feels this year! There is only so much you can get from numbing yourself with cold sea water, Instagram reels and bingeing on malteezers. I needed to run hard today. And despite the slowness and pain, it was really good to hurt in a positive way for a change. 

At the turning point of my planned out and back I was rewarded with a panorama of snow capped mountains. For the rest of the run the trees act like horse blinkers, I could only see straight ahead. Volume up, pop rock chases any thought away. In this moment I was simply in my body, in a running body. 

I will come back from here, and I will be back here again.

INVITATION I: MAKING A COMMITMENT

Dear Body,

I commit to putting you first in 2024, I have asked a lot of you and you have gone above and beyond everytime. You have cared for everyone and now I will care for you and stop putting you last. I will do this by following these four resolutions,

1. I will only speak respectfully and positivly about you

2. I will meet your physcal needs for nutritous food, hydration, rest and movement 

3. I will treat you when you are injured

4. I will thank you everyday for the life you have provided us with and everything you went though to give us a family.

Ever grateful,

Your soulmate