Week 17, 6/5/09 - Wednesday

Time of day: 12 midday
Distance: 20 miles
Time: 3:42:51 (total running time), 4:10 counting a lot of messing around.
Weather: Warm and sunny

This was a learning experience. I consoled myself by saying 'this is what training runs are for, to iron out the problems!' There were a number of factors which affected this run:

1. My youngest son was going on a school holiday, which meant that he was at home in the morning and had to be dropped off at school at 11am. They didn't actually leave until 12 which was when we started off. But we also had to be back at school to pick up our oldest son at 3:10, which obviously wasn't enough time for me to run 20 miles.
2. The weather was very warm and sunny and for most of the time I was running in full sun.
3. I had been feeling a bit under the weather over the weekend although I felt I was fine by Wednesday.
4. We only brought one bottle of gatorade which I carried in my camelback and one 1.5litre bottle of water. (Now I'm writing this down I can't believe this!).

So we waved Matthew off on the coach and started on our way. I had had breakfast at about 9 I think and then a banana at about 10:30am. The first few miles were uneventful. I had planned to stop for drinks and sweets approximately every 30 minutes. I was going to run for 1 1/2 hours out and then 1 1/2 hours back which should have been around 17 miles by my calculations and then the final 3 miles with both Steve and James after we picked James up from school.

The weather really was very warm and sunny. I usually run first thing or in the evening, so I was unprepared for how warm it was and can only think that I was losing more fluid than normal. At the first stop at 3 miles I was already starting to worry that I wasn't going to have enough to drink. Normally I don't drink much until about 6 miles then I have water and then at around 9 or 10 miles I will start on the gatorade. Well today, at 3 miles I was really thirsty and drank quite a bit, at around 4 - 5 miles I was sipping on my gatorade as I was running. At just over 5 miles I stopped and had some jelly belly sports sweets and a piece of chocolate, but really I was less interested in these than in water. At this point I was still stupidly trying to ration myself on my drinks as I was worried about running out.

We got to the 9 mile point and then turned around. The route we took was absolutely beautiful, neither Steve nor I had ever been that far along the canal and it was a gorgeous view. In fact I think that's what kept me going really. The track, though, did get quite uneven and required quite a lot of concentration to keep upright. after about 10 miles my ankles and legs were starting to hurt quite a lot. I was also starting to get quite ratty. I was panicking about how thirsty I was. I ran out of gatorade and didn't want to eat any more sweets as it was making me more thirsty.

At around 11 miles I think, we passed a pub and I sent Steve in to get some water, (I was bordering on the hysterical at this point! but hid it well). He met up with me about a mile and a half later with two 250ml bottles of water, which I felt I could have downed in 1 go.

"Is that all" I said ungratefully "but I'm so thirsty".

"They were £1.75 each" he told me.

At about 14 miles we decided to go our separate ways. I continued along the tow path armed with money to buy water at the next shop and Steve cycled off to get James from school.

I plodded on. Back to civilisation. I stopped at the loo in the park and then struggled on to Asda where I bought another litre of water and a packet of ready salted crisps which I had a craving for. I'm sure I must have made a fine sight stood outside Asda by the bin alternately shovelling crisps and tipping water into my mouth like a starving person. I decided to walk for a little bit while I finished my crisps, I filled my camelback up with the rest of the water and then started off again. This was about 16 miles.

I really could have given up there and then. Everything hurt. I met up with Steve and James at about 17 miles. That gave me a bit of a boost. Then came a long uphill stretch (do you remember that hill that I said was nothing to speak of? well it's funny how different it seemed 17 miles into a long run.

We arrived at the junction to our road at 18.5 miles. The distance from the end of the road to our house is a quarter of a mile. I needed to run past the junction in order to make it to 20 miles. In my head I was trying to figure out how far up the road I need to run before I could turn around and run back home, to make it exactly 20 miles. I just could not work it out. It was like my brain had lost all ability to function normally, it just seemed beyond me. Now it seems simple, but I guess any glycogen in my body was being directed towards my muscles, leaving my brain a little short.

I settled on adding a little loop on which actually worked out perfectly. When I got home I led in the front garden in a heap. God it was so nice to stop. I refused to let myself think for too long about the thought of doing 6 miles longer than this on the day.

POST SCRIPT

I woke up at 3:17 am after this run with a horribly sore throat. Hardly able to swallow. 2 paracetemol went a little way to helping ease it but generally feeling pretty rough. So have taken the day off sick today. I'm sure my colleagues love the fact that all this running is keeping me so healthy! I did a quick internet search on the effect of long distance running on your immune system and found this interesting article which I think explains a lot.