When I stopped timing my runs in March, I had hammered my times down to about 17:30 or so for the two miles. But I was no longer feeling neutral about exercising in the morning — I started to feel more intense annoyance and resentment about my morning runs, and I decided that any extra fitness I attained wasn’t worth the spiritual cost of beginning the day with vexation.I stopped timing runs, settled back down to my unambitious pace, and resumed my milder dislike of running. It was good. The unpleasantness of running was balanced by the evident health benefits. I am sure that I’m fitter, sturdier, and my weight has very gradually diminished since I started skipping rope in the mornings about six years ago.
As I said earlier, I begsn timing myself again this week, not with a view to improving my time so much as to observe my run, just as I didn’t set out to lose weight as a goal, but I have observed it as a side effect of the more important activity. So now, I’m running a more comfortable 20:15 or so. I still don’t like it, but it’s good, and the malignant competitive drive hasn’t kicked in.
And although we haven’t conquered the infection; we’ve nipped various vectors, but it seems as though someone is just directing a lot of hits at various addresses, most of which are no longer even there. Way too much traffic for three days, but my hosts are trying to figure it out — and if I go silent again, you’ll know that we haven’t been able to solve it. Yet.