Managing Expectations

I have been trying to prove to myself recently that my running is not quite as bad as it seems to be. With that in mind I went out for an 8 miler on Wednesday morning. It was very cold and there was very little wind so everything was stacked in favour of me running as well as possible. I hadn't run for 2 days so my legs were fresh.

Still it wasn't flowing and by the time I got down towards Porty Prom I had a bad stitch that was getting worse and I had to stop and have a think to myself. I keep pressurising myself to be running better than I am. How's about pulling back a bit and just allowing myself to be as I am? The run was somewhat rescued. I took off more gently and I avoided developing another killer stitch. I even enjoyed some of it.

Presumably I'm still "recovering", although I don't know what is recovering from what and what form that might take.

No racing for me this weekend then, which I'm glad about, and although I was sorry to hear Berwick XC has been cancelled, that gets me out of another race. On the horizon is the Forfar Multi-terrain half marathon which I've paid for so I'll do, but don't feel enthusiastic about, and the Carnethy 5 Hill Race which is still nearly a month away so might not be so bad.

The thing is (I am telling myself) to enjoy the running and avoid comparisons.

Thinking all this got me thinking about the phrase "All comparisons are odious" and wondering where it came from. This is what I found out (from a web-page here).
I wouldn't want to engendyr haterede after all.

Comparisons are odious

Meaning

Literal meaning.

Origin

The earliest recorded use of this phrase appears to be by John Lydgate in his Debate between the horse, goose, and sheep, circa 1440:

"Odyous of olde been comparisonis, And of comparisonis engendyrd is haterede."

It was used by several authors later, notably Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne.

In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare gave Dogberry the line 'comparisons are odorous'. It seems that he was using this ironically, knowing it to be a misuse of what would have been a well known phrase by 1599 when the play was written.