Running on empty

My programme had a 2 hour run today.  I’d mentioned to Richard I didn’t want to lose what I’d gained running through training for the SBS.  Sunday is run day.  And from what we both had gathered, the Tri Club’s run group runs 2 hours on a Sunday morning.

That was my plan.  Except I hadn’t heard about a run for this Sunday.

Although my alarm was set for 7am I wasn’t keen to get out of bed.  I did.  Only to check the weather report.  It was so windy out this way.  I also thought it was raining.

I checked up on Facebook and a number of people were questioning why I was doing a 2hr run so soon after starting back training.

I decided with the gloomy weather, no group to keep me both honest and motivated I’d run somewhere between 1 and 1.5 hrs.

So back to bed I went.  I got up just after 8am.  Put another loaf of bread on to bake, ate the two crusts from the loaf I’d made yesterday and then set about doing my core/muscle strength workout.

Then after brushing the teeth it was out the door for me.

With the wind blowing from the East it made the decision about which way to run the 10k track pretty easy.

Quite a lot of the track is spongy, not wet spongy, but soft spongy.  It felt quite strange.

There were a couple of detours due to yet more tree felling.  Surely they’ll be removing the "forest" from the description at this rate.

The 10k track is just shy of that, even with the detours.  Once I got through the lap I headed back as if I were doing a 2nd lap, but I knew I was going to turn around at the 2nd detour sign.

I have to confess to feeling like the energy was just leeching out of me, even before I’d reached the completion of the 10k loop.  The rest of the run was hard work and of course I was wondering how much help I’d have had from energy gels, water, or some food.

Still it wasn’t my intention to run a long run, but because I’d already missed a key session (spin class) I really felt I needed to do closer to 2 hrs than 1 hour.

All up I ran 1hr 51min and just a bit over 17k.  That’s slow.  I’ve just checked what my pace was at the different times I hit the lap timer, at one point (21 minutes of running) it was 6:55/km.  It was probably when I really felt buggered.  In fact I’ve never really felt that tired before.

I was sore when I got home.  My lower back hurt and I could definitely feel it in my legs.  It’s fair to say it didn’t take me too long after chowing down on a protein shake to get stuck into the stretches.