I'm an idiot!

Yesterdays' training was cancelled... after 4 hours in a traffic jam and not getting home until very late, it was knocked on the head!
Today I got up after a great nights sleep and got ready for my long run. The plan was 2 hours 15 minutes with my XL vest and new rucksack with the majority of the kit required inside it (for the race in June). I figured if I get used to it all now then by June I'll be fit as a fiddle, and a couple of weeks ago I carried quite a lot anyway, and did that run rather well... so it sounded like a good idea at the time. I didn't think to weigh it... after all, it couldn't be that much more weight... it certainly didn't feel like it!

Before the start of the run I had already decided to go fairly slowly on a 5:5 run/walk split. My foot hasn't been great of late, so I saw this as taking the sensible approach. The first 4 miles of this run is pretty horrible... it just goes slowly up and up and up, small downhill then up sharp, flat and then up and up again. It's only around 500-600 feet ascent over the 4 miles, but it really takes it out of you because there seems no let up. I began feeling really over tired and thought it was just because I was beginning a run straight onto a hill. Each walk break became extremely desirable, and although my foot felt OK, my breathing wasn't so good and my legs felt very tired indeed. After not training yesterday with my step exercise, I thought this was unusual as my legs shouldn't feel tired. To be honest, I actually thought I was being a bit of a wimp and pushed through it.

As I got to around 1 hour, my foot gave it's first twinges so I turned around and had a cheese sandwich while I walked. I wondered how this would affect my running as I ate it... but I have to start trying certain foods sometime, so why not today? The white bread tasted minging but I ate it anyway and began running again. Little foot twinges were not too bad so I carried on and ran more than the 5 minutes as it was all flat or downhill and the cheese sandwich had no adverse effect. I walked a small uphill and my foot just felt terrible so I rang Graeme and asked him to pick me up so I didn't make things worse. It was as I took my backpack off to get my phone that I suddenly thought, "Jesus... that weighs a ton!". Because it was very comfortable to wear (almost to the point I had forgotten I was wearing it) I hadn't thought about how heavy it was. I wondered what the weight of it was and decided to get it and my XL vest weighed when I got home. Maybe that's why I was finding the run today so difficult!

Getting home, I stepped on the scales with everything on and then took the XL vest and backpack off and weighed myself again, to find I was exactly 1 stone lighter. Converting this to KG, I found this to be 6.3. That certainly was the reason today had felt so much harder... surely!

After a bath my foot was really aching and I emailed William and Shaun and said I had decided running Stamford was not a good idea as I thought my foot was not doing well. This decision did not upset me... if it was an ultra I was cancelling I'd have been devastated. Shaun emailed back saying could I put the decision off for a week as running with 6.3KG today was far from their recommendations and I'd probably have been fine if I'd gone out with less weight. I instantly felt stupid... like a complete idiot! I also felt very embarrassed. After 19 months of training with them, I really should have known better. They have always got me to make small increases in weight, and for me to go out without even knowing the weight I was carrying really was idiotic. It turns out I was carrying 10% of my bodyweight... which is just too much!

So, it's not been a good week for me! My training hasn't been good and I've felt quite down about it. Fortunately as the afternoon has wore on my foot has felt a lot better, so if I wake up tomorrow and it is the same or slightly better then maybe I haven't totally set myself back after all. Idiot idiot idiot!!!