Post Holiday Blues and Lethargy

This week's "training"...

Saturday: 1 hour yoga, 3 hours body boarding, 20 minutes pool swim

Sunday: 1 hour yoga, 20 minutes pool swim

Monday: 1 hour yoga, 20 minutes pool swim

Tuesday: Rest day

Wednesday: Rest day

Thursday: Body Balance

Friday: 5 mile run

Hoooo it's been a hard week... says the girl who's had the better part of a week in Cornwall! What I mean is that it's been hard, since I've been back, to get back into running. My legs have felt heavy, I've felt lethargic and I've used almost every excuse in the book not to go out and run.

Cornwall was magnificent. We were blessed with fantastic weather. The kind of weather that gives you ridiculous tan lines because you're not expecting it. It certainly gave us the incentive to be out and about and this led us to tackle what I thought was an 8 mile walk along the coastal path. I should have taken a proper map. I should have taken my Garmin. I should have worn sunscreen. We ended up walking for around 5 hours with no real idea of how far we'd gone, worrying that we'd overshot our destination and discovering that a coastal path can sometimes be boggy, rocky and almost disappear completely. However we had some outstanding views, saw old mines, ate cake overlooking coves and overtook a large group of German hikers to reach a pub I'd been aiming for, more by luck than design.

Tan lines part 1

In this pub, whilst ordering a well-deserved cheese board (one of many consumed during the break) and large glasses of wine, I happened to bump into a couple that I'd met on holiday in Atlanta with my dad. It's a small world indeed! We all happened to be going to the Minack Theatre that night (we'd only booked that morning on a whim) so the coincidences and high times continued.

Unexpected company!

Doing things in style at the Minack

The Epic Walk was the most strenuous thing I did whilst I was away, it was never intended to be an active holiday, more of a reboot, although I did make token efforts at movement with almost daily Pilates or yoga and a bit of a swim. Of course there was body boarding too. Gosh that was fun. But none of it was enough to offset the food. Oh the food!

Getting my surfer chick vibe going

Wetsuit tan lines... sigh!

Cheese boards with apple and walnut scones, crisp breads and home made bread. Pasties and pastries. Three course breakfasts featuring the best bircher muesli and granola I have ever had. "Fizz and chips". Treacle tart, panna cotta, pesto risotto, grilled peaches, the most amazing cauliflower soup, black currant and clotted cream ice cream... oh my. Oh and the ginger biscuits that my mum obtained the recipe for and made this week. Divine. DEVOURED!

Fizz and chips... a Roberts Cornish tradition

I have never been so sad to leave somewhere or to arrive home. Post holiday blues are here in earnest and my lethargy is almost certainly an attempt to maintain the holiday vibe as much as possible. Tuesday's run should have happened... Wednesday run was never going to happen due to work location and evening plans (Stephen Fry!) and so I made an extra effort on Thursday. I bribed myself into doing a 5 mile run with the promise of Body Balance afterwards, getting back into things, making use of my severely under-used gym membership and regaining the stretchy, calm feeling I got on holiday in one fell swoop.

I can afford to let the plan slip a little. There are eight weeks until the Gatliff ultra and I'm in good shape generally. After 30 miles it takes the body a little while to recover and I'll be up to the 18 milers again in no time. I'm planning to include more yoga in my life. Practicing everyday on holiday was a treat but not feasible for me right now. Once a week I can do though and I'm looking forward to that. Strength training also needs to start featuring again. I'll be drawing up a new plan in December for Tough Guy which will focus much more on strength than distance but again, for now, once or twice a week will suffice.

So I'm hoping that the lethargy is on the way out and I'll be a little more bouncy next week. There's an action packed seven days ahead so I really need to be! How do you get over post-holiday blues and lethargy?