Bread and butter

Here's the scene: I've got a bottle of Pinot Grigio chilling, a brace of pollack fillets in the fridge awaiting Mrs HF's gastronomic genius (I could do a whole other blog devoted to this subject; SmileyEater?, SmileyGuts? Smileystuffyerface?), The Jam's 'Sound Affects' on the CD. And I did my River Loop run for the first time in many, many months.
Life's good.
After Sunday's mighty Kentmere Horseshoe, it took until today for my solidified quads to decide to flex enough to allow me to bend my legs sufficiently to permit running. So at lunchtime I tottered out. And it was shocking. I wheezed and huffed my way round. I plodded glacially up the hills. I creaked my way down. And I thought... this is what it's all about. This sort of run. When you struggle and groan and revel in the sunshine, the cool air, the beauty of the hills - anything that takes your mind off the fact that you are so not running-fit. The sort of run you do because you know that by doing it you'll feel better next time. This is training.
And, of course, once I'd twigged this, I relaxed into it and enjoyed it enormously. And probably got faster because of it.
So if Sunday was the Mrs HF gastronomic- de-luxe cake-with-cherries-on-top run, today was the bread and butter run.
And I reckon bread and butter makes the cake taste better.

Smileyrating: 4/10 for the performance, 9/10 for the weather