Monday. Day 49
My feet hurt and I am knackered.
Tuesday. Day 50
My feet hurt and I am knackered.
Wednesday. Day 51
My feet hurt and I am knackered.
Thursday. Day 52
My scheduled training run with G. Usual route part way round the loch with an option to extend or shorten depending on mood/conditions/pain levels.
Feels pretty good considering I have done nothing even resembling exercise for 4 full days. Unless you count creaking back and forth to the cupboard we keep the Berocca in.
It is much milder than usual and yet again I have dressed inappropriately for the conditions. The upshot is I am soaked, sweaty, and manage to lose a neck warmer on the way round. The pace is good however and I am feeling pretty pumped. Perhaps less training is a good thing…? V will be thrilled.
G exits as we pass her house and I carry on to the village hall to pick up the rugrat. I arrive with a good 5 minutes to spare only to realise that my car is parked about half a mile away outside the school. Exactly where I left it this morning. It is now lashing rain and the rugrat has no coat.
A sprint back to collect it and looking on the positive side – as I so often do – I realise I have completed 8k and feel altogether chuffed with myself.
Friday. Day 53
Day off in preparation for a 10 mile/16k monster run tomorrow. I decide on a healthy homemade burger for dinner with low-fat sweet potato wedges. I feed the kids a chippy and another layer of guilt is added to the poor-parenting sheen I already wear so well.
The healthy extra-lean steak mince burger is delicious. Especially after I pair it with a last-minute dollop of fried pancetta,blue cheese and onion rings. I suspect “healthy” might now be out the window. Although it’s likely the beer, wine, port and whisky helped did for me there too.
Bit wet and windy this morning but given this is Scotland, I have come to expect nothing less. I have learnt my lesson and have had my Weetabix, topped with strawberries; on which I will impart some sound advice. Do not buy strawberries in winter. They taste of ‘red’, and frankly nothing else. I could have garnished the cereal with delicately diced polystyrene, it would have had more flavour.
We are off to a good start and after last week and our positive outcome, we are feeling motivated. The Garmin 10 fails us somewhat initially, and we are almost 2k in before it finally finds the GPS signal. I take no responsibility for wasting that time at a slow jog while I try to reset it no less than 9 times without any glasses or the first idea how to work the damn thing. Eventually though, Big Brother has us in his sights and we are making excellent progress on the route from last week.
It is very wet and we are sensitive about getting our feet soaked early in the day. The paths are so marshy that there is a lot of dainty – and on my part, not so dainty – hopping over puddles, jumping bogs and general buggering up of the pace as we try to get moving in ankle-deep mud. Eventually we get on to the road and pick it up a bit.
The wind is against us most of the way round and we are happy to note it doesn’t make a huge difference. We are making good pace and our time is pretty much the same as last week, which was calm and still. We may actually be FIT after all!
Being relatively new to this lark, we are trying out a range of energy boosters. So far Starburst have worked well, but today Lucozade tablets get an airing. An airing is exactly what they need as unfortunately, the only pocket in my running tights is right at the small of my back so they are a little soggy once we are 5 miles in. As if that wasn’t enough of a reason to scratch them from the list, they are rather powdery and trying to breathe through your nose while eating them can result in choking. We had a bit of a hairy moment where I thought I may have to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on V or bundle her over my shoulder and sprint the rest of the way home.
Luckily for her, I managed to eat mine without too much drama, having to drag my heaving carcass into a fireman’s lift could quite possibly have killed her.
We will try gels next week. Watch this space for more in-depth analysis on training aids.
In order to make up the 10 miles we are so keen to get in the training diary we have to run through the park and then out to the end of the village and back up the hill to V’s place. A slow and gradual hill isn’t really the way either of us want to finish but we arrive at the park making good time. It is a quagmire and deeply unpleasant, particularly now that we are tired, cold and hungry. The lucozade tablets have given us neither boundless energy, nor the will to carry on.
Sucked in again by marketing hyperbole.
We make it half way up the main street when we hit the magic 10 mile mark and agree the rest of the way can be classed as ‘cool down’ if we stop and walk. It is amazing how one can jog along, one foot in front of the other, for many, many miles but as soon as the decision is made to stop, the effort of taking another step, even at walking pace, becomes almost too much.
We agree that stopping en route come race day MUST NOT HAPPEN, as I doubt either of us would find the will to get going again.
I test out the theory by running from V’s place to mine – about another 1k – it is the worst feeling in the world and I am perilously close to collapse and tears by the time I get home.
The next sensible steps are: rehydrate, shower, eat a high protein meal and rest.
As you will have probably realised, I laugh in the face of conventional theory. Or, if you prefer, never learn.
Instead, I throw together an enormous club sandwich with a side of crisps and wash it down with yet another Berocca. Then I hastily shower, dress, and hot foot it out the door to S & E’s place to drink enormous amounts of alcohol and eat them out of house and home. While displaying a blatant disregard for parenting of any kind.
The rest is hazy, but both we and the children make it home unscathed. Social services are kept at bay for another day.
There was a small incident with a pair of rather expensive Ugg boots and some glitter glue, but as N is still terribly sensitive about it (they were a birthday gift), I shall say no more.
Sunday. Day 55
Rest day, except that N and rugrat number 1 are climbing Ben Vrackie so rugrat number 2 and I are left at home. I can’t speak for her, but I’m feeling lazy and a little ashamed about sitting around on my ample rear nursing aching limbs and a fuzzy head. So, once the ever-present rain has abated, we hop (I use the term loosely – I doubt a ‘hop’ ever involves groaning), on the bike and head out for a jaunt around the loch.
Exhilarating and highly recommended after a night on the sauce, but very tough on the thighs. We run out of jelly babies after about 6 miles so have to turn back. If you have learned nothing from this – and if you have, god only knows how – you must at least be aware that you cannot take small children on outings without the appropriate supply of jelly babies.
Forget the gels, next week…..it’s all about the Jelly Babies.
The Reluctant Athlete 