Triumph and Disaster

Well, it’s been a while… Things have been pretty full on lately and I have failed to find time for any bloggage, for which I can only apologise, and I now have an awful lot to catch you up on, so grab a cup of tea and settle down. (Actually, to save you all losing the will to live I think I may split this into two or even three reports, so feel free to come and go as you wish.)

Where to start? After my triumph at the Surrey Half I started a new job at the National Trust, which was a bit of a shock to the system. It’s not a hugely demanding or stressful job but I still had to go to an office and concentrate for 8 hours. And now I have to fit my most demanding weeks of training in around work. Yikes! How do people do it?! I actually just did two sessions during the week – the first of which was particularly worthy of note. The Plan said 50 minutes fast. Yes, that’s right, FAST. The only session in the entire plan at more than brisk – and you know how I feel about brisk. Anyway, as I was still feeling the Half Marathon in my legs I decided to ignore the Plan and instead to substitute a session of about 80-90 minutes at my usual plod. However, once I got out there my legs just seemed to want to run, and run. I completed my (little bit over) 50 minutes and had run 5 miles, at an average pace of 10 minutes 29 seconds per mile (and the last mile in 9 minutes 57 seconds)… Knock me down with a feather! So, now I know I can run a bit faster if, say, I were being chased by a bear (although he'd still catch me pretty quickly so maybe I'd be best not exhausting myself in a futile attempt to escape and just let him eat me and get it over with quickly) but I won't be doing it again any time soon. Back to "comfortable", "easy" and "slow" on the plan for the remaining few weeks. 

The little car in which I have been riding the emotional roller coaster had been steadily climbing the last few weeks, so I guess it was inevitable that at some point I should come crashing down again. (I’m actually not convinced about the roller coaster analogy for the Marathon experience because – not that I go on many as I hate them – most roller coasters I can think of finish at the bottom… And that’s not what we want!) So, after the fun at the Surrey Half, and Wednesday’s triumphant “fast” session, that weekend’s LSR (technical term - Long Slow Run) was a bit of a disaster. Not all of it, but you only remember the bad bits. As we were due to go out for Sunday lunch I had to bring the three hour run forward to Saturday as I didn’t fancy getting up at Oh God hundred hours to have breakfast and go and run for three hours, also allowing time for R’n’R before going out and trying to be sociable while hobbling about, as is my wont after these really long efforts. We went into town as usual Saturday morning, so I planned to go running after lunch. It was a beautiful day, as had been several days recently, which makes a lovely change, but of course early afternoon is the warmest part, and it was very warm.

I planned a figure eight loop, returning home in the middle to pick up more fluid as my little running bottle doesn’t carry enough for a long hot run. The first part took me along more of the River Wey towpath, this time in the Woking direction. It was pretty dry apart from one stretch where there was a logjam of cyclists trying to lift their bikes over the bog. I just ran through it. At eight miles (1½ hours) I had a sports gel. I’d wanted to find the GU ones that I’d tried and quite liked at the Surrey Half the previous weekend, or a Lucozade one as that’s what you get on the day, but neither of my local shops do those varieties. I got a Power Bar Mango and Passionfruit one with caffeine (!) which was incredibly sweet and rich. I think I was supposed to dilute it with water but I was conserving my supply so just had a quick swig to go with it (also I had Lucozade in my bottle so the two sweet things together was a bit icky).

I got home at almost exactly two hours, just after 10 miles, swapped the Lucozade for water and set off again, trying to persuade myself that I was just starting out on an hour’s run. My brain was ok but my body was having none of it! At 13 miles I had another gel. In hindsight I think this was a mistake. It was too rich and sickly sweet, and didn’t sit well in my stomach at all. This is why we practice what we can and can’t eat in advance. By now my lower abs were cramping and my shoulders ached and my feet were killing me, but I kept going (not all running today, some planned run/walk bits and some walk up slopes bits) slowly, until I’d done 3 hours 10 minutes which turned out to be 15.87 miles, whereupon I crawled, sobbing, through the front door and collapsed (very slowly, more like a fold than a collapse) onto the door mat. Hubby came and asked if I wanted anything, I said “an ambulance…”. I know I should eat within 20-30 minutes of a long run but I felt very sick and so so tired and couldn’t face eating anything. After a while I dragged myself upstairs, stretched a bit (with a few lying curled up on the floor sessions in between feeble stretches) and crawled into the bath (having to get out again fairly swiftly to be very ill...) When I eventually got downstairs for dinner I felt very poorly, and after just two mouthfuls of what tasted and felt like sawdust, I was very ill again, but then felt a bit better and did manage to eat a little bit. The evening was spent on the sofa with my feet up, gradually feeling more like myself.

I didn’t know if it was the sunshine, or the distance, or the time, or the gels, or not enough fluid, or a combination of everything, but most definitely not a good experience. I had thoroughly spooked myself and was very scared again – how was I going to manage another 11 miles on top, what should I be eating during the race, how to carry everything etc. At that point I was never going to run again, but of course, tomorrow is another day…