Think positive …. My hamstrings are tight, but not currently injured and Dunn is now in ‘production’ …

I had a bad day the other day and wrote a very ranty post, which I have since deleted.

Whilst I still require the mixture of vodka, valium and St Lucia that I suggested then, I have decided to try to be more of the Zen, accepting, earth mother that I decided I wasn’t on Thursday.

Not!!!!

But I am feeling less annoyed with the world.

The kid has behaved better

The hamstrings are tight, but haven’t given out in short slow runs again (yet)

And, whilst no one else has bothered to read the Seagull on wattpad, I haven’t had any more patronising feedback either. I maintain (as I discussed in my deleted, ranty post) that constructive feedback can lose its impact due to throw-away (?hyphen) comments, such as ‘practice more’, but I’m just about over it on this occasion.

On a positive note, Dunn is now in production. It should be released in around 16 weeks (ish), so that’s exciting 😁

I have nearly finished draft one of The Seagull too. The word count currently sits at 54,500 so it is novel length now, with a few chapters left to go. Its a first draft, so it needs a lot of work, but the skeleton is there and a fair bit of muscle.

Unfortunately, my own skeleton/muscles are unhappy. It seems I need a break from the computer, so I am going to finish draft 1 and then focus on getting my flexibility back, because my back/hips and hamstrings are currently still pretty bad.

Had a massage yesterday, and the masseur pulled the ‘oh dear, you’re stuffed love face’ when I mentioned that my hamstring was straining recurrently, so I am currently feeling very negative about getting back to where I was and progressing with running. The physio has been positive that we can sort it, so I’m holding onto that and doing everything I’m told …. I have managed a couple of short, slow, treadmill runs without incident, but it’s really hard to be ‘grateful for every mile’ as the articles tell you to when you have to drop from 20 mile runs to 3, and drop from 7.50 min miles (I know this is a jog to a lot of the macho types that post in injury forums, but I was happy(ish) with getting to this target pace for half marathon at 42 years-old) to 10 min mile (theres nothing wrong with that pace either, its just relative to where I was, its a big drop) …. I am grateful, but still gutted. Even mild injuries suck. And I feel like it’s never going to get better, regardless of what the physio says 😭

So, its all a bit bittersweet at the moment.

The sitting-related back/hip/hamstring problems are making me positive about going back to work in September, though, because I don’t get to sit for more than 15 minutes there. So every cloud has a silver lining.

Yuck, I’m making myself want to vomit.

Also have loads of cool trips lined up for the summer. And I am grateful for those.

Croatia (Pula) with lovely husband and stroppy son at end of May/June for some snorkelling/paddle-boarding/swimming.

Going on a bonding trip to a desert island in Cape Verde off West Africa during turtle breeding season with the demon child. Lets hope we can have fun!

Staying in a Tipi in the lake district so I can swim 3.8km of lake Coniston (I am working through the swimable ones year by year, because we love it there)

Then it is our tenth anniversary, so were off to Orkney to see iron age ruins and hopefully some orcas/seals….though hopefully not orcas eating seals.

So there’s no time for marathon training anyway

🍸