Mind over matter

Thurs 22nd Jan

Body Attack

Fri 23rd Jan

4 mile run

This was meant to be longer, with Louise but in an attempt not to have to carry water I drank too much in the hour before and had my throat problem the whole time.  It was really painful and after having some control over it for a while it is becoming quite debilitating just now.

Sun 25th Jan

Drymen – Beinglass Farm  29 miles 7hrs 30 mins

Ave 15.43 m/m although that include what became extensive breaks

Drymen – Balmaha (6.83miles) - 1hr38mins (14.28m/m ave)

and 7.49  min break

Balmaha – Rowardennan (7.74miles) - 1hr44mins (13.29m/m ave)  

and 6.36 min break

Rowardennan – Inversnaid (7.13 miles) - 1hr40mins (14.09m/m ave)

and 10.13 min break

Inversnaid – Beinglass Farm (6.53 miles) - 2hrs1min (18.41m/m ave)

This was an awful run for me and I had been really looking forward to it which made it even worse.

There were a combination of factors including having the cold since the beginning of year and feeling rubbish.  My worst time in the run was after the lemsip wore off.  Then there was the fact that our downstairs neighbours decided to have a Mamma Mia party at 4am on Sunday morning and that come Balmaha I lost my breakfast and probably most of last nights dinner too which left me feeling rather weakened.

There were 5 of us who set off from Drymen, a bit later than we planned as it took a bit longer than we thought to drop cars off etc!   And here lay the next mistake.  Pacepusher (why would I believe anything he says with that nickname) promised me the pace would be slow but four males (five for a bit when Marco – again nicknamed Sonic; what was I thinking! – joined us) are never going to be slow enough for me.  Although if I had been feeling fine then I think I would have been okay and I was certainly planning on being much faster than I was, I thought a bit under 7 hours was not unrealistic.

I enjoyed the run to Balmaha as we did stick together and it was nice to see Marco, although of course he and pacepusher raced off at the front.  I wanted to hear all about Debs and Cairn but I guess that was never going to happen when they got together.  I had to settle for it secondhand from pacepusher later.  I felt under less pressure as we were all in the same boat struggling through several inches of snow, but it felt fun.

As I said I then felt a bit weakened in Balmaha and struggled from then on to take in enough food to fuel up enough.  Another thing which was causing me major discomfort was my waist pack.  It had been uncomfortable last time but bearable but this time it had more in it and was just awful.  As Katy in Achilles Heel said, they are just not made for females.  I will have to get a backpack thing.   Neal offered to take some of my stuff and it ended up that it got shared around and we dumped the pack at Rowardennan as Neal was never going to use it, it was partly burst and I hated it!  I felt terrible about passing my stuff on but I have the bruises and sore hips to show that it was more than doing my head in!

I also got my throat problem again with trying to take a liquid yogurt quickly at Balmaha and that troubled me for the rest of the run.  I was okay to Rowardennan although did not enjoy it as much as the first part.  I kept having to tell Neal to slow down as he was pushing the pace on and I could already feel myself feeling unwell.

I then basically died a death from Rowardennan on.  I was burning up and roasting whereas Neal stuck behind me was cold from going slow with me.  I could not see straight at times and felt quite faint.  I cried a couple of times and sobbed once and was just desperate for Inversnaid where on arrival I sobbed and sobbed.  The others wanted me to get the boat to Tarbet although they could not find out if it was running or to wait at Inversnaid but I can be a stubborn b***** and desperately wanted to get the mileage in as I was worried I would struggle then next time if I did not finish this run. 

Things were a bit fraught shall we say between Neal and I, and I pretty much ruined his run I think and the others for which I apologised afterwards.  It was just head down and get on with it to the end but it was hard going especially as it got dark towards the end and I was really losing the will to live!

For the second time in as many weeks Chris stuck with me and I am really grateful for that although feel bad that I held him back.  And that I was thoroughly unimpressed with his efforts to cheer me when just at the end of the loch he was waiting for me with balloons he had found!  At that point I could not have handled even that non-existent extra weight!  He was great at trying to keep me going and staying positive, although he was less than impressed himself with the lochside part of the route!

There was only a feeling of relief to finish, no accomplishment feeling as I had done so much worse than I expected or wanted.  I need to get rid of this cold and then I hope I will do better on the next run which I will be doing myself on the Sat as I am on a course Sun, Mon and Tues.  That might suit me better as I can go at my own pace.  My training has hardly gone to plan so far, hopefully it improves soon.

Catching up

A combination of not a lot to write about, no time to write about what I have done and no internet on my laptop for the last few days now means I am doing a short catch up and trying to remember what I have actually done myself. I took my laptop to a school on Monday to see if we could get on their wireless network in preparation for a CAT session on Tuesday showcasing Glow (and so needing to use the internet).  It didn’t work as the wireless was too weak but I have not been able to get connected at home since.  Any ideas?  It says I am connected to my network but then just says that it cannot display the webpage.  Very frustrating!

After feeling like I was getting somewhere with my injury, on the first day back at work after the holidays I woke up loaded with the cold and that destroyed my good intentions for the new year.  I felt pretty much as WHW runner did and have really struggled to find the energy and motivation since.

Thurs 8th Jan

2 miles – feeling rubbish but wanted to do something

Sat 10th Jan

19.36 miles  Milngavie to Balmaha

4.02.57  (plus 5 mins stop Drymen)   Ave pace – 12.33 m/m

This was a half mile longer than usual whw route because of diversion so counting it as 4.02 for purposes of seeing what kinds of times I am doing for WHW training.  Was about 2.15 to Drymen which is what I have done it in everytime.

Did enjoy this but died a death after Drymen as have done so little running recently.  Picked it up again later on.

Tues Jan 13th

3 miles wooodland path with pacepusher as I just could not find the energy for anything else.

Thurs 15th

Body Attack and Body Pump

Friday 16th Jan

8 miles  1.19.42  Ave pace 9.58m/m

9.34, 9.43, 9.38, 9.44, 9.46, 9.51, 9.58, 11.28

So it was only the last mile that really let me down but I struggled big time.  I felt rubbish and was only doing this run to keep Louise company.  She is doing London and was doing 15 miles.  I had wanted to do more of it but there is no way I was fit for it.

Sat 17th Jan

Ben Ime – 4 hours  2 1/2 hours to the top, 1 /12 hours down

Monday 19th Jan

1.5 miles club – far too icy to do anything of worth and I spat the dummy out when we went on the football pitch and it was just so wet and cold underfoot I could not face it!

Tuesday 20th Jan

Spin fit and Body Attack

Wed 21st Jan

7 miles, 1.03.01, ave pace 9.00 m/m

No laps as forgot to put my watch back on lap timer thing after setting it all ready for a speed session on Monday.  Felt good to get this run done although I felt we were running much faster than we were and I really struggled on the hills but it has given me a bit of motivation back.

Loaded

After achieving a target for 2009 already I have since been loaded with the cold and have not done anything since Thursday.  Feeling really fed up as it is only 15 weeks on Sat until the Fling now and I am feeling unprepared now for long runs with the next WHW training run only 2 weeks away.

I was at the physio again today.  I have done my exercises a bit but not as much as I should have been and I have now been given many more as well.  This is partly down to another sore bit in my leg that I commented on.  Since August I have been wearing high heels in my new job almost all of the time and it was well before Chicago that I realised I was getting sore shins and a sore ankle in my right leg.  I asked the physio to look at it and she says that because of the high heels I am now using my big tool to pull my foot up when I am on my heel and this was very obvious.  I could also hardly pull my foot up at all.  She was also astounded at the tightness of my calves – I guess I just thought it was normal!  Anyway I am going to try and wear flat shoes more often at work, especially on days when I am just in the office (which is not that often) but all of suits need heels because of the length of the trousers – I am just a shorty!

Hoping to run tomorrow at lunchtime, just a little easy one to see how everything feels.

1st target achieved for 2009

Edinburgh Triathlon – 400m swim, 11.5 mile bike ride, 3.5 mile run   1.52.29 total

swim – 11.27 mins

T1 – 4.08 mins

bike – 1.01.40

run – 35.12 mins  (bike and run include T2 as could not manage to maneouvre bike and press watch!)

I was terrified before this started as I had not had much training and was feeling the pressure of it being my first one and not really knowing what I was doing.  Had to back to the car 2 or 3 times as I kept thinking of other things I wanted or changing my mind on things, even down to the trauma of what to wear for the swim! 

I was going off in heat 5, at 1.05pm and the heats started at half twelve so I thought I might have misjudged my swim time as it was slowest swimmers first, after the elites.  However there were still several heats after me and I certainly would have found the previous heats too slow as I got to watch them before I started, in my fetching green swimming cap, which was the colour for my heat!

I really surprised and pleased with myself with the swim as my previous best was 11.53 and I had had no practice in a 50m pool so thought that would slow me down.  You go along each lane from one end of the pool to the other and I found that helpful in terms of feeling like you were going somewhere but I found the swimming under ropes time consuming.  I knew I was swimming well but still thought I was slow and I found the breathing hard as I was trying to be quick.  As in training I did a length of front crawl and then a length of breaststroke.

I spent longer in transition after the pool than I thought I would but as it was January I wanted to make sure I was drier than I would maybe bother with at other times.  I left, as many people did, socks, shoes and 3/4 length leggings along with a towel at the poolside to change inside.  This is not normally allowed but as it is January they are kind to you.  I did not want to do the longish run outside to the bikes in bare feet in January!  I added two tops, gloves and my helmet outside.

I found the bike ride the hardest, it was three times up and around some of Arthur’s Seat.  The uphill was hard, although I did overtake people (and also got overtaken) and it was surviveable but I was too chicken to let go on the downhill as it was very steep and quite narrow and I got overtaken lots on that part.  It was also cold when you came off the downhill and on the flat before going uphill again.  My feet got freezing and I knew that would be hard when I started running.  Pacepusher and my mum and dad were there to watch and that was good as doing the laps meant I saw them lots.  My mum has cracking photos but I have not got them yet!

I was quick on the second transition but did not manage to do my watch.  The official results will show it though.  The run might be my slowest 3.5 miles ever.  At first I thought my calves muscles were going to rip in two, I had been expecting it on my quads but that didn’t happen.  When my calves calmed down it was just basic tiredness in my legs really but I was also starving by this point!  The hill was really hard but I ran it all and overtook quite a few people, some of whom were walking up the hill.  The downhill seemed to take forever to come though – I may well have run down it quicker than I cycled down it!   I even managed to overtake 2 people in the last 50-100metres.  I averaged about 10m/m pace for the run but it did not feel like I was going that slowly.  I would have been a lot slower on the uphill and quicker on the downhill.

I enjoyed the different challenge and will definitely be signing up for the Stirling uni sprint triathlon (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run).  I will even try and do some proper training this time!  And here’s a surprise (not!).  Pacepusher has now decided he wants to do it too, despite stating on his blog that he would never do one.  I knew that would happen!