Nightmare

When you call 999 at 4:45 am, that is never a good sign. Niamh and me found ourselves thrown right into a parents' worst nightmare without warning. An anxious half-hour wait for the ambulance was followed by 36 hours taking turns at the hospital and minding our other 3 children. We were allowed to go home on Tuesday evening with the immediate emergency over but the saga will go on, for a long time.

Obviously running did not feature particularly high on my list of priorities but I managed 2 short runs on the treadmill at home on Monday evening and Tuesday morning. This wasn't for training, just to sort out the head, though a road run would have been much better for that purpose but obviously there was no way I would leave the children unsupervised.

36 hours on/off in hospital also served to give me a bad sore throat, which doesn't come as a complete surprise as hospitals are a prime infection centre, especially an awful one like Kerry General where they serve junk food for dinner and the floors are not washed properly (the nurses and doctors are nothing short of phenomenal, though. They so deserve a better workplace!). This, paired with the fact that my mind was still on the last couple of days, served to keep me awake for most of Wednesday night, so I binned the idea of running 15 miles and turned off the alarm completely. However, I still woke early and eventually got up and got ready, in time to run 12 miles.

The legs are feeling pretty good after getting more rest than anticipated and the VDOT values are showing that I'm getting into really good shape, though obviously right now I don't particularly care. However, life goes on and at some point a good race will become important to me again, so I'll keep the training regime going. It serves to take my mind off things anyway.

One change I made after looking at the mileage on my shoes. I had 3 in rotation with 1300, 1000 and 500 miles on them respectively. I opened a brand new shoe box and  relegated the oldest pair to treadmill duty, replacing one pair of Saucony Virratas with another one. To be honest, the new shoes don't feel all that different to the old ones. I like lightweight shoes that don't have much cushioning in the first place, so there's not much to lose.

18 Jan

5 miles, 40:45, 8:09 pace, HR 135, treadmill

19 Jan

am: 4 miles, 32:15, 8:04 pace, HR 129, treadmill

pm: 6 miles, 45:34, 7:36 pace, HR 135

20 Jan

am: 12 miles, 1:33:23, 7:47 pace, HR 139

pm: 4 miles, 33:40, 8:20 pace, HR 132, treadmill