May 2014

[Charliecat5]

It’s so depressing

It’s been a tough week at work – I left home first thing on Monday morning and arrived back at 8pm last night following a week full of meetings, hotels, beer and very little in the way of healthy nutrition – so it is no wonder when I arrived home last night that I took to the grape juice like it was water to try and claw back the ‘five a day’ that I had been missing all week.

I also set off this week with the hope that I would get at least a couple of runs under my belt – but the reality was that I only managed a single 3 miler.

So I had great plans for this morning’s run and had been looking forward to it… thus I was up before the alarm strapping on my Mizunos and stepping out into the glorious sunshine. The plan was to run over Juggs road and up onto the top of Kingston Ridge and then from there down into the valley of death and back up Castle Nature Reserve hill to head home back down via Kingston again.

The first mile was ok… pretty much all up hill (well it’s all up hill until you get to the top of Kingston Ridge) and in the second mile I was starting to find my pace… but just before I got to the gate which takes you to the bottom of the two ridge tracks I was overtaken by another runner. Not an overtake that you hear coming and which takes a while to execute… I only knew about this guy when I felt his jet stream wash over me and then for the few seconds it took him to disappear into the distance – a distance that involved a very steep incline to the top of the ridge. I didn’t see him again.

Well this really knocked the stuffing out of me this morning, just when I thought I was getting the hang of this running lark. How soddin' depressing…

Mind you, when I did make it to the top of the ridge the views were awesome, the sun was shining and even though my legs ached and my heart was trying to escape my chest and my sweat was almost pure Malbec, I made it round my route in reasonable time – 7.34 miles at a 9.30 min/mile pace. Although, I would have to say that these stats represent the time spent actually moving and don’t include the periods when I had to switch off the Garmin so as not to interfere with the air ambulance’s navigational systems as it swept in to reinsert my ailing heart back into my chest.

THEN… when free falling back down the hill from the top of Kingston Ridge I passed this guy coming up the hill… now I don’t know how old he was but he was significantly older than me and he even looked older than Sweder (I know it wasn’t Sweder because he’s currently in Geneva) and he was no slouch in terms of the speed he was moving up that hill… again, how sodding depressing… by the time I was on the final home stretch my body was really starting to feel drained… putting the alcohol to one side, I am starting to conclude that I need to do something about my running nutrition – any ideas/advice over what to eat pre, during and post a run to keep up my energy levels would be very welcome particularly as I am now starting to push my distances.

Obviously, it would help if I cut back on the drinking, but perhaps after the bank holiday … you know, next week… or even the week after… it doesn’t pay to rush these things.

Onwards and upwards