Discipline

Today I got up to see a text from my bank...I've spent far too much money on races and race paraphernalia... I will have to be careful for the rest of the month!!!
I had breakfast (muesli for the first time before a long run, so wasn't sure how I'd feel after having that), took a puff of my inhaler a full 30 minutes before leaving the house, and filled my Camelbak up with 2 litres of water... well, if I have to run between checkpoints with water I need to carry at Grantham, then I best get used to the weight of it now. I then put all of my gear on, along with my XL vest that now holds an extra 1% of my bodyweight.

My Garmin satellites found and I was off. Today was all about the discipline of walking for 5 minutes after running 30. I'm not good at walk breaks. Once I've had the first walk break I can't seem to motivate myself to keep running for the rest of the time and therefore hit a downward spiral of running 2 or 3 minutes and walking 30 seconds or so. This normally involves walking all hills and inclines and sometimes even walking some of the down hills. I'm pretty shit at it all really!

I deliberately picked a route with a tough first half. My reasoning being that I needed to know if my inhaler would work if taking it a full 30 minutes before starting the run, and I have only ever ran the first 3 miles without a walk break once or twice (and never with the XL vest on). I needed to start this training with a route I would normally find hard... and start as I mean to go on...

The first 3 miles were as painful as expected. The extra weight of the water felt much heavier than last week and my legs literally felt like lead. Every uphill hurt like hell, and I will be honest and say it was tough to keep going. I have so got used to walking when I feel like it that it felt really tough to keep going so I was only doing "Positive" walks. Just before the 30 minute point the steepest hill of the course had to be run... typical! So, the first 5 minute walk was just total bliss... a whole 5 minutes. It was a totally flat section and I kept it as brisk as possible, and worried about how I never manage to stick to a run/walk strategy once the first walk break is over because I don't have the discipline (or energy) to do it.

The second 30 minute stint came... another bloody hill. By the time I'd got to the top of it my breathing was all over and I desperately wanted to walk. Although it was tough, knowing that if I could just get to the end of the 30 minutes then I could have a walk break I was allowed was really motivational. This 30 minute section was very hard... again, a lot of uphill. I just got to the very top of a hill again when it was time to turn around and have a 5 minute walk... DOWNHILL! Bugger!!!

Coming back was obviously easier as it was a lot of downhill and I managed it fairly OK. My legs felt heavy throughout, however I think that the deep water running that I do on a Friday tires me out quite a lot, and will do until I become accustomed to it. Yesterday I did well with it and managed to achieve the same speed sections that I used to do on the bike. I got out of the pool afterwards and ached everywhere, so it's bound to have a bit of an effect on me today.

So, I've felt very tired all afternoon and after a massive coughing fit at 8 miles and then another when I got home, I had to use the inhaler again. I'm having a lemsip just in case it's something more sinister!