The Running Diaries - Journey To Half Marathon

Day 21-25

Lockdown day 21

I thought that I couldn't have much room left for any more hatred towards something, but then I got injured.

Am I injured? Is this what people class as a running related injury? Because I didn't feel any pain during a run, just the next day when I woke up on the same thin mattress as I have for the past three weeks, I felt like I'd had an exorcism during the night.

I'm not sure that anything can actually help me and a whole bottle of radox definitely hasn't. I thought for a split second that it may be a sign that I should chill out a little bit on the exercise front, then I realised that it isn't a sign but instead is just a slight implication, a bump in the road.

Was almost certain that I'd go back to old habits now that I can't run or do a workout, but unbelievably it's made me even more determined to stay dedicated to my diet. I think it helps that there is no temptation in this house other than the tin of tiny chocolate bars, but I have no urge to raid the tin and binge on every single one like I used to.

Have decided that it'd be best to not weigh myself until I'm back running for about a week and I'm sure (if sure means hoping and praying) that it'll be in no time at all. As my stepdad has continued to say every time I wince "You're young, it'll mend in no time", for once I'm actually taking his words as a form of comfort? I don't think I've ever been injured in this way. I mean I've had dislocations and torn ligaments but this is just back pain and I use the word just like it's nothing but really, it's bloody painful!

I always used to watch my dad complain about his back at times and I thought it was just a way for him to complain that no one lifted a finger around the house and so that he may get some sympathy from us. Turns out, back pain does exist and it isn't just related to periods? Period backache is a different pain to this, and period back ache really is a girls worst nightmare, that and leaking but I think this pain might just be everyone's worst nightmare, especially a runners.

Have been debating making a facebook post, a tweet or an Instagram story asking any fellow old people or runners for advice, but realise that people would probably say "Finally, it's karma for shoving all of her running into our faces". I realise that in this book, I make my friends on social media look like the worst people in the world which they're not, I just seem to think that everyone dislikes me and slag me off at the first chance they get.

The biggest issue that I've found since being unable to run (a whole 24 hours) is that I don't know what to do with my lunch times and after work. I was filling the spare time with exercise and now, I'm just sat either outside listening to the birds because there's zero signal out there, or I'm answering my 6 year old neighbours questions about what my favourite subject was in school, or listening to her stories about her friends. A conversation with Emily, I can absolutely have and I could spend almost all day listening to her tell me about how she loves to draw, a conversation with Dave about lorries on the other hand...

Emily also likes to tell me every time she's seen me run past the house which, up until lately has been every single day, meaning that today I got the question of "Why haven't you ran?" Because Emily, I'm injured, sad and twiddling my thumbs. I tried to word it in a way that makes me sound tough and also, makes me sound less sad about it than I actually am and her response was "Would you like to draw a picture?" Now, at the start of this whole diary, I wrote about how shit I was at running, well let me explain how apoplectically shit I am at drawing... So bad that Emily laughed and asked why I drew a horse when the task was to draw a cat on a table.

It made me think about all the hobbies that I could take up to distract me from the fact that I'm unable to run

Gardening – Can't bend down without being in pain so that is a firm noKnitting – sounds like something only granny's do but I was a knitting wizz at the age of 6Drawing – I don't think I could ever improve at that, you've either got it or you don'tBaking – Have never and will never bake unless I enter a competition of the world's worst cakesPhotography – Now this, I can get on board with.