#111.21 - New amazing milestone
It goes without saying I am 50.33 years old. Over the past two months I have discovered that it is very easy turning back the clock on the body. The formula I have gone over it repeatedly so I won't go over it again. I know that I will plateau in a month and three weeks. I will have reached where I was in my early 30s and I will stay there. Many bad habits e.g. drinking and eating too much meat have now fallen by the way. Running daily, eating simply and in small amounts are habits I am putting roots down in. Not to mention the cleaning and laundry and other areas of order and pleasaure.
Today I decided to go to Belvoir Park Forest. Partly because you know, Forest, and partly because I wanted to see how I was in tackling the hills there.
Let me be clear the hills in Belvoir are nowhere near as formidable as the hills of Holywood which I began running two months ago - 40 days ago to be exact. In that time I have managed to very closely run all the way up the Croft Road hill. Almost. It will still take me another three weeks to complete that feat. But the daily runs have trained me into hill running which is far more exciting and interesting than running on the flat, and of course the fitness levels have just increased in general.
So I thought, I wonder what my running is like in Belvoir. Belvoir I have now run for twenty years. Yes, that is right. I was 32 years old when I started running in Belvoir Park. It was June 2003. I wondered how I would compare now with the hills there. The hills in Belvoir, apart from the Stormont Hill was always tough. They were slightly tougher for some unknown reason. I'd be able to run up the Stormont hill with some effort completely but not the Belvoir Hill. So today I decided to do this.
I arrived there. The run was amazing. Just gold but cold. I slipped into my usual parking space and then had to choose which side I went for. I decided on the arboretum run, instead of the Lagan Tow Path. I completed it in record time. It usually took 35 minutes and I did it in 20. With another 15 to spare, I thought, I'll try the hill that leads to the tow path - that is the acid test. There is one more acid test but I won't do that till I have conquered the Croft Road Hill. So, I went for it. I continued my run and ran down the hill, made a loop through the forest and then up. Up and up and up and I didn't stop till i reached the far end of the hill. I did not stop just after the brow, the blue post, and I just kept on going. I was now fitter than I had ever been in years. Years. It has literally been years since I've been able to do that - and I did.
I did my sit ups and stretches and lunges and I felt like I could go for another ten rounds. By the time the end of May arrives I will be exactly where I need to be. I will be as fit as I was in my 20s. Honestly I wasn't very fit in my 20s. I will never be 17 again, but at least I can be in my 30s. In fact, fitness wise, I am already there. This completely incentivises my continued training up the Croft Road Hill. I have become a middle distance hill runner. I will never run up Donnard, but you know, by the end of this I'd be able to run to Stormont over the Craigantlet Hills. All this has been made possible by not drinking.
I have to admit that drinking is no longer an activity my body can either cope with or that I need. It is with some relief that I did all that drinking and had all that crazy when it could cope - and now I can just move on from there. I don't eve need it to have fun and enjoy a party - I guess I never did. But it was fun.
Right time for Irish and Autism and then lunch and then the school. OisÃn arrive in East Anglia! How wonderful!
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