Shock to the System

My 10 miler yesterday started just like any other 10 miler I’ve run recently: get up at 6, get some breakfast for me and Shea, pacify Shea with telly to prevent him from waking the rest of the house, and leave. It looked like it was going to be a nice day, with the sun peeking through the clouds. The run went well until about 7 miles when I started to get all kinds of aches and pains. Not just in the legs, e.g. my right shoulder was really sore. As I continued, my eyes started to get more and more sore, and when they started itching, I realised that I was suffering from an allergic reaction. I’m very familiar with allergies, having suffered from hay fever since the age of 12. I got home and had a shower, but my eyes were so swollen that Niamh wanted to send me to the doctor straight away. I started to feel better after 30 minutes or so, and decided to skip the doctor and buy some anti-histamine in the pharmacy instead. I felt like crap until lunchtime (and the tablets made me drowsy), but felt better and better in the afternoon, and was fine by the time I left work around 6pm. I’m not sure about the cause, but suspect that it was fairly severe hay fever from some pollen. This could cause a real problem with my running schedule if it happens again, but for the time being I’ll carry on as usual.

On the plus side, I’m feeling much better than a few days ago. The head cold is mostly gone, and the achilles/calf issue (I am back to thinking that it was the achilles) seems to have disappeared as well. I’ve started to do some specific strengthening exercises, mostly to get the feeling that I’m doing something about this.

Today’s recovery run went very well, I really got into the “slow running” mode. At one stage I felt like I was gliding just above the ground with very little effort. When running the Connemara marathon, after about 11 miles or so, one of the ultra runners overtook me (it was mile 24 for him) and I noticed his peculiar running style, his feet hardly left the ground – he still went past me like a rocket of course. In some ways I got that feeling today, I hardly seemed to lift the feet, and the heart rate was very low despite the fact that I was running uphill at the time. Maybe I’m finally getting a handle on that running economy thingy.

There was one more very unusual occurrence: another runner! Yes, it’s unbelievable, I know. I was rounding a corner, and all of a sudden I saw another figure trotting along about 100 meters ahead of me. I tamed my competitive instinct to catch the guy and kept to my recovery effort, and we ran about a mile at the same pace, him maybe half a minute ahead of me. Then he turned around and headed towards me. My cheerful “Good Morning” was completely ignored though; I didn’t even get a nod in reply. Ah well – must have been from Dublin, I suppose.

24 May: 10 miles, 1:23, 8:18 pace
25 May: 5 miles, 47:05, 9:25 pace