Week 9: A lot of miles, a stomach bug, and a most satisfactory long run

This Sunday the weather was kind and the cookies were plentiful, for which I was very grateful.

Having felt really washed out last week from lack of sleep, what I really needed this week was an upset stomach.  Luckily, I had a few days of sleep to recover and had done most of my mid-week miles before it reared it's ugly head.

This week has in many ways been a comedy of errors at my own expense.  I've had some great runs and a couple of less great ones which haven't gone to plan, but by and large with 53 miles in the bank, a few of them at a reasonable pace, and no injuries to anything other than pride I think we can call it a success.

Tuesday's 5 mile tempo was not a success.  I picked a terrible route and ended up with multiple traffic stops which really defeats the point of a tempo run in my opinion.  At the half way point I realised the elastic in my running tights was giving up the ghost and the gusset was sinking towards knee level with a distressing determination.  Fortunately, I had big black running pants on, because I'm pretty certain if I hadn't there would have been at least a couple of ass to the wind occasions.  I huffed, puffed and grumped my way through the last two miles continuously hitching my tights up and swearing to myself.  This was probably the most frustrating run of the week.

Wednesday on the other hand, I felt grand, ran 12 very windy mid-week miles with the middle 6 at a little quicker than marathon pace, and had a really good attack on a couple of local hills in the process of doing so.  When I say I felt grand, I felt grand for 10 miles of the run.  For the last two miles my stomach tied itself in knots and I felt rotten.  At first I thought this was just as a result of the run, but later when I got home I realised I had been struck down by some vile bug doubtless brought home by one of my children.  The next 12 hours were absolutely no fun at all and the following day I felt pretty dreadful in a "you could knock me down with a feather" sort of a way.

My weight has been holding pretty steady for the last few weeks.  I've gained a couple of much needed pounds, gained a little muscle, and generally felt a lot better for it.  All of a sudden, literally overnight, I was down 5 lbs and feeling awful.  I (foolishly, I am aware) dragged myself round a very steady 6 miles on Thursday having realised early on that I just couldn't do the planned intervals.  I decided to finish with some 100m strides and given I was feeling weak as a new born, I did them all wind assisted.  100m with a 20 mph wind behind me, walk back, repeat.  I wasn't really going for it, just opening my legs up.  I love doing stuff like this.  Then an idea popped into my head, a question.  Can I run 100m at the pace of one of  the really quick guys in the club?  I worked out his average 5k pace to be about 3:10/km.  Surely, on a wind assisted 100m, I could do that.  Long story short, no, I can't.  My legs were running out of power with about 20m to go each time, and the best I managed was about 3:12/km.  I did somewhat alarm the postman in the process, however.  I also felt sufficiently awful after running to realise that I really did need some rest to recover from the vileness of the previous night.

I still felt wobbly by Saturday and did a steady parkrun, while questioning how the hell I would be able to manage 20 miles on Sunday.  Saturday I made a big effort to eat lots of carbs - a real hardship of course - and keep fully hydrated. 

I'd picked a route for the long run this week which had a few convenient cut backs to open the run up to people who didn't want to do the full distance and it was great to get to the leisure centre and find a big group.  I knew it was unlikely anyone was going to do the full distance with me, but that took the pressure of "what if I don't feel up to running 20 miles today" off.

Every long run I do I have a wobble about 2-5 miles in.  The wobble is "oh my god, there's no way in hell I can run like this for 16, 18, 20 miles".  I'm not struggling or feeling terrible, but I convince myself I'm going to, and this wobble normally lasts for several miles.  As I do more of the longer runs I keep hoping this self doubt will go.  It hasn't done yet, but when I have company in the early part of my runs I sometimes manage to chatter through it and largely escape it.  Today, having been ill and actually having a logical reason why I may not be able to do run the full 20, I was expecting a big wobble.  Actually, I felt really confident and happy for the first half of the run and loved having people to run with.  Similarly when the last person left me around mile 14 I was perfectly content running the last few miles on my own.

Then, at mile 15, my bloody dodgy stomach started to give me issues again.  Horrendous churning cramping and I absolutely knew I needed to find me a toilet.  Unfortunately the river bank comes equipped with relatively few so I started to look for a suitable bush.  It turns out the river bank comes equipped with relatively few of these too, either they're incredibly prickly or only provide cover from one direction.  There are tracks/paths/canals in both.  Eventually I had to make do with something far too sparse and thank god no-one came past at that moment because that's an image that could have scarred them for life. 

I did however then feel up to attacking the latter part of the run.  The plan said 16 miles easy, which I'm taking as about 8:00 - 8:15ish at the moment, and the last 4 miles push.  I'd gone a little fast on miles 10-15 which was a mistake.  It felt OK at the time, but I took too much out of my legs too soon, and the 4 mile push at the end was hard.  The first was OK, despite being into the headwind, and I put in a 7:10 feeling OK.  Then fatigue hit, and the next 2 were horrible.  The last mile I was determined was going to be the quickest of the run and I was on the park which was both bad - I'd taken a wrong turn so ended up having to loop the park to make up distance - but also helpful because I saw all the regular dog walkers and elderly folk I see when I run on there a lot and their smiles and encouragement and chatter made me determined to bloody do it.  I did it, I finished the run with a 7:03 which was a lot quicker than planned but I just wasn't looking, and I took far more out of myself in the process than was sensible in training but at the same time I needed that mental boost of "I can do this".

Next weekend I've my first race of the year, a half marathon, and I will be on a little mini-taper this week.  A couple of days of nothing more strenuous than shovelling carbs and protein into myself to regain weight, a couple of days of "normal" training; some speedwork and a short tempo run, a very important Saturday morning run as I accompany my Mum on her first ever parkrun, and then the race on Sunday. 

I'm over-training, I've done 53 miles this week and pushed too hard on the 20 miler today, I know I've been a bit silly.  The next long one will be easier in pace, but I needed this run today.  So much of the battle for me is in my head and I need to see I can do things to believe it.  This evening, nine weeks into the eighteen weeks of training, I'm feeling like I can do it.  I ache, I really do ache, and I'm very tired, but I'm pretty blown away by what I've managed to do through 9 weeks of hard training.  Long runs, hard runs, intervals, a decent race that I placed in, a couple of sub-20 minute 5ks and more miles than I would have believed my body capable of this time last year.

So today, I'll accept my aching legs, and my general exhaustion, and be happy eating cookies in the sunshine.