Got My Mojo Workin'

Day:        31
Distance: 8.73km
Time:       51:02 secs
Calories:  684

For the first time since starting to train for the marathon I had a general feeling of can't be botheredness. Normally I'm pretty motivated, but tonight I just didn't feel like it. I don't know whether it was the headache I had on the way home from work, the decidedly cold night, wanting to have a rest or a combination of all three. However, I'd already agreed with Jim that I'd accompany him and didn't want to let him down (it later transpired that Jim had been feeling pretty much the same about running tonight).

The result of all this? It was a great run. I ran with ease, enjoyed being able to clear my head, concentrated on running and shooting the breeze with Jim. To help keep things fresh and to take account of the fact we were starting later than on previous Wednesdays we decided to take a different, shorter route. This route takes us up a fairly steep hill on Lordship Lane in East Dulwich. I remember including it in a couple of routes that I ran in preparation for last year's half marathon and I warned Jim in advance that it was incredibly knackering. I needn't have bothered with the warning. We hit the hill at around the half hour mark and I was expecting to endure a few minutes of difficulty, but as we reached the brow of the hill I realised that neither of us had had any difficulties whatsoever and hadn't even slowed down noticeably. A sign of progress, I think.

Another sign of progress was that, without even trying, we ran considerably faster than at the same point last week (averaging 5:51 mins per km compared with 6:19 mins per km last week), so for the first time in a few weeks I didn't finish the Wednesday night run with a feeling of disappointment.

I often find with running that it's the runs that you don't fancy, or those that seem like a chore initially that turn out to be the best ones. That was certainly the case tonight as I'm now feeling exhilarated and re-energised.

While I'm in a good mood I thought I'd share a classic piece of music. At Christmas I was given a Muddy Waters' Greatest Hits collection and one song in particular grabbed me straight away with its up tempo proto-rock n' roll rhythms and fantastic harmonica sound. "Got My Mojo Workin'" has gone straight onto the running playlist - how can a song like this fail to pick me up and get me moving?