Beware of the hills...

Or how reality slaps back.

After last Sunday I should've rested but instead I took advantage of my horrible swimming technique. Given that I don't kick, swimming would not bother my legs at all, and the little kicking I do, theoretically, could work as some kind of "active recovery". Plus, I wanted to avoid not moving for a day which I solved quite effectively as I ended up going to the pool three days in a row. On the other hand, pushing myself on the water a bit was something I had to do it as I'm not sure I will be able swim at all in the coming weeks until term starts again. Yes, term is over now and what was Hoghwarts has become a nicely decorated version of Azkaban, again, but I'll just have to be here for like a week and then I'm back to my motherland.

Motherland's a weird place but needless to say I kind of feel my roots. I surely have an Spanish character, not to mention a thick accent. But other than that, I have adapted more or less al-right to life in this land of pirates(although my fellow Britons learned about them as "patriotic sailors" in their history lessons) so as much as I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks of not having to worry about cooking and mostly having to worry about reminding my grandparents and my mother that my stomach has a finite size and capacity and running, I also know that a couple of weeks is possibly the upper limit of how long I can stay home without getting tired of it. We'll see. I'll get back to the present now.

As I subtitled it, I was hit by reality today. Very nicely but firmly and I think it is something good. I went for a long run, this time outside, with some wonderful friends of mine who showed me a lovely new running route. This route in particular happens to be also of a distance equal to that of a half-marathon, my distance, so it was perfect to test my finishing time estimate of about a couple of hours(not to mention my estimate of being able to finish). With an altitude change of 150 meters, it's as much an altitude change as you can get around here. I finally ran it in 2h and 20 minutes approximately. It's not like I was trying to run fast, I was going with my friends so I went at their pace. But after finishing(and having to walk the last bit of the hill because of the complaints coming from my right knee) I was totally knackered and I am actually not sure that running faster would have been possible to finish. So, all in all, I'm not that kind of superhuman that I was getting convinced I am, I'm still pretty awesome though :) . And I need to start training seriously and doing proper quality training. Also, I really need to get strength training in if I don't want me knees to be fucked up.

But I finished with a smile and, given that I didn't finish at my doorstep, I just kept running a bit longer, completing 14 miles(22.5km). It felt/feels good.

PS: This time my nipples are fine. Just in case you were worrying about it.