Read With Caution

How detailed should I describe today’s events? It depends how much I want to gross you out, I suppose.

After feeling very tired on Monday I made sure to run Tuesday’s recovery run extra easy, and was rewarded with another “lowest heart rate ever” run. This keeps happening, and is a reassurance that I’m not over-training. The legs felt better, and I wasn’t as tired any more. Oh, and I ran without eating breakfast before. I didn’t attempt to copy Mike with his depletion thing, but when the alarm went off at 6:40 I thought “breakfast or another 10 minutes of sleep?” and sleep won hands down.

Since I’m still planning on running the 5k in Killarney on Friday, I moved this week’s long run from Friday to Wednesday. 19 miles is quite long, but it didn’t look too daunting; all my recent long runs have gone very well, and the legs always held up to the end, so I wasn’t too worried.

Things started to fall apart after last night’s dinner. Niamh made some Mexican dish, and the problems are 1) it’s too delicious and I always end up eating too much and 2) the beans. Plus, it’s quite hot in the evenings these days (hot for Ireland that is. The guys and gals from Arizona would be freezing, I suppose), and sleeping at 21C/70F isn’t something I do easily, and I kept waking up. The alarm went off at 4:50, and despite being tempted to stay in bed I got up and got ready to go out. The stomach immediately gave notice that it wasn’t happy (which I blame on the beans), and I had to force the weetabix down my throat. I had to go to the toilet three times (I did warn you, remember?) before I felt brave enough to head out. The first two or three miles were awful, I battled my intestines and was constantly worried about losing it at both ends. Eventually my digestive system settled down and the rest of the initial 10 miles loop was ok, though I was running a tad slower than usual. I was rewarded with a stunning sunrise; the sun appeared to be bright red and illuminated the few clouds in amazing orange/pink/red shades. Anyway, I passed our driveway and picked up a water bottle that I had deposited there. As soon as I took a few swigs of water, my stomach woke up again, and this time it was worse. I tried to keep going, but two miles later I had to compromise and squat beside the road to get rid of the dead weight inside (you had been warned). After that I felt better for a few more miles, and until the 17.5 miles point it was ok. Then the stomach cramps returned with a vengeance, I nearly threw up once or twice, and the legs felt like lead all of a sudden. Of course at that stage I was on my return leg anyway, and all I could do was keep going, but it was a rather ugly death trot, until I finally made my way back home. Ugh.

I guess this happens to every runner at some stage, and the way I see it, it’s part of the initiation rites. Now all I need to do is lose a toenail, then I’ll finally be a fully paid member of the “real runners” club.

4 Jul: 5 miles, 49:17, 9:51 pace
5 Jul: 19 miles, 2:43, 8:34 pace