20k, 2hr 15 - alternatively titled - F**k that was hard
woke up this morning and was VERY pleased that my foot was fine (thank you gary...) headed out for my first hour before meeting up with Lulu who had 1 hr 20 on her program. in the end i met her at 50 mins and she had to do an extra 5 mins :)
in a scene reminscent of practically every other run of my life - i went out too hard. avg pace at 6k was 6.18. then i whacked a hill in and met lulu at avg of 6.23ish.
started to feel a bit fatigued as soon as i started with lulu. she was forced to go slow for me which i felt very bad about. then i started to notice the pain above my ankle on my right foot coming back (its allllll related apparently) so stopped and stretched. that helped it a little but it remained and is still aching a bit. luckily i am booked in for another massage on tuesday so i'm confident that will be fixed too!
now around 10k i REALLY started to struggle with fatigue. At 11 i was lagging behind and at 12k i had a bit of a mini meltdown. I never really thought that i would stop but i did actually think i was going to burst into tears (honestly there may have been a stray one or two...). Still Lulu kept me going and without her encouragement i don't know if I would have made it. somehow the feet kept going one after the other and soon we were at 17k and back at the park. ran into Sean's squad. because my muscles were all fine he said to keep going - would have loved to stop for more of a chat with Katie/Bernie/Deanne but I was not in a position to stay still because i literally wouldn't have started again. Picked it up for the next 1.5k and then the last 1.5 was just a grind. I was in struggle central. I finished 20k in exactly 2hr15 min as my program said, but it felt disproportionately hard to all of my other long runs.
theories behind that? it was hotter than I'm used to, massage yesterday so maybe my legs were tired, ???? I think it is more likely just 'one of those days'. i hope so. i am hoping that it is isn't an indicator of how I'll go in the half. i've never found keeping going so hard. far out. still i did keep going and I am going to take that as a positive.
thanks Lulu :)
Laps were: 6.45, 6.05, 6.11, 6.12, 6.22, 6.42, 6.53, 6.31, 7.01, 6.25, 6.38, 6.30, 6.41, 7.00, 7.02, 7.06, 7.35, 6.57, 7.02, 7.11
posted by Ellie80 @ 11:25 am
9 Comments:
Regardless of the pain factor..thats a pretty awesome run :)
and how good did it feel when it was over.. :) Thats the good thing about this stupid pain we put ourselves in, it makes us feel good later :)
Oh and we have nice muscly legs :)
Thats a great long run and well done for sticking it out - can't wait to see what time you knock the half-marathon over in.
As I said at the time, you did a great job of toughing it out and seeing through your run. I'm sure the massage probably had something to do with the fatigue too. I hadn't thought of that. It can only get better from here!
There are 'good days' and 'bad days' in all training sessions Ellie. It's just that bad days in long runs seem worse because you have more time to think about it.
You'll be fine in the half.
Hey ! I thought you were injured ?
It is hot out there and it can make the world of difference until we all get used to it.
Well done !
Well done Ellie!!!! What were you dsaying about mental toughness! It would have been easy to stop and talk to us and not keep going... well done! That will help on the day :-)
yeah - that's great to get that out of the way now for you ellie. It was meant to be hard, and it was - and now you won't have that "venturing into the unknown" fear with you on race day. Once you're past that (even if it hurt and has you worried about the race proper), you'll find the Half a relative breeze. The adrenaline and atmosphere will see to that :)
That's the best training you could possibly do. Not only do you know that you can do the distance, but you can do it when everything seems to be against you. There's nothing that a race can throw at you that you can't deal with! Run with confidence now Ellie :-)
Gnome
Seems to me that when the pain train pulled into your station Ellie you paid for your ticket and rode it to the end of the line (I'm sure that was in a movie - maybe miners can use it as a title)- great stuff mate - I love posts like this one ;-)
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