Chasing Rainbows

I'm not sure who needs this right now... but is something I wrote originally for my RunPals running group and it has helped push some of them out to get active. Hope it helps you too.

How buggy running will get me through lockdown 2.0.

I firmly believe that exercise has a positive effect on my mental and physical health. Without it, I start to get itchy feet, especially when “locked up” at home for what feels about a millennia right now, I start annoying the rest of my family. I get grouchy. I get frustrated. I want to break free. Ask my wife what it’s like if I’ve not done any sort of exercise over a couple days…

Let’s just say we’re thankful she’s patient with me. Imagine what it was like pre-running (I know…there was a time when I only owned one pair of “run” shoes) when I surfed in all my spare time…if it had been flat for a month I would always push the conversation to us moving to another beach. Flat or not, she’d send me to the sea and I’d come back totally recharged.

One day we’ll get to move to that sandy beach we’ve been talking about / I’ve been selling all these years but for now, we’re happy here on our fat sand beach...the pebbles of the Sussex coast.

Anyway, back on the subject of running… within a few minutes of leaving my front door with my running kicks and babygurl I always feel better. Not because I’m leaving the mayhem of a small family behind for a moment of tranquility (though there are many benefits I’m sure!), but because we’re free. No phone (apart from pictures of course). No laptop. No screens. No other distraction other than what lays ahead.

That doesn’t mean every run feels like I’m skipping through a bowl of Lucky Charms filled with unicorns and rainbows and happy music playing and where the fields are flowing like Hershey’s cholate syrup (mmmmm) but in that time, I’m able to let off any steam that has built up inside my engine over the previous couple of days.

Some days I’ll ignore my iron plan and just run hard because that’s how I feel. Somedays I’ll take it down a notch because I Iove where we live and soak in every inch of the playground that is all around us. Some days, I’ll let babygurl take the lead and run where she wants to go. To me it doesn’t really matter as long as I get out there and if I can be with babygurl in the buggy, even better.

After any run, I feel better. I think more clearly. I eat healthier. I’m a nicer daddlio to live with.

I run with my whole family as much as I can but with my two eldest back at school and taking on new daddy day care duties, I have more time to play with my baby gurl and go on more running adventures with her too.

Without a shadow of a doubt she has been my solid rock throughout this pandemic.

At the start of lockdown 1.0 we set challenges to help keep focus by giving ourselves a running goal to work towards. I wanted to run her through my 10k, 5k and 1 mile personal bests, which we achieved, but that wasn’t the best bit (though it did feel pretty good flying with babygurl in her buggy!).

No, speed work aside, it was more that I was out with one of my best pals – my babyGurl. Not taking anything away from how much I love to run with my other children (they’re too young to find this blog ) but whilst we couldn’t meet up with anyone else, she was the one I was talking to. She was the one that cuddled me post run just after I lost my dad. She was the one that jumped through muddy puddles with me. She is the one that I now chase after as she focuses more on running herself, over sitting in the buggy. She is the fire inside me that keeps me going. She is the rainbow in my Lucky Charms. She is the one that has me wrapped around her little finger

What on earth am I writing about? Honestly, I haven’t got a clue.

For those that know me, sometimes I get rambley in my words. For those that don’t, well, welcome to my brain

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen how much some pals are struggling to get out in Lockdown 2.0. Maybe it is in the hope that one pal reading this will make contact with another pal and go and run each other happy. Maybe I just miss running with my pals, in all their funky running glory.

We all have a pal somewhere. Mine happens to be my babygurl, but call that pal, message your mate. Check in on them. See how they’re doing.

Your little nudge to get them up and running might be all they need to fill their day with rainbows. That, or you'll just get a little sweaty ;-)