Half a Half...

On Wednesday I ran half a half marathon: 10.6km.  

The pace was reasonably slow and the sun was pretty hot....we started at about 7.45am which equals serious sun in southern Caribbean terms, although some of the road was shaded by bamboo, and a refreshing breeze blew at times. We ran the length of Tucker Valley which undulates ever so slightly and chatted the entire way which was a wonderful distraction (albeit not so helpful to pace setting...) 

The way down, the first 5k, felt great.  My legs felt warm and capable, I knew there was a great deal more in my tank (thank you sweet potato for appearing in my fridge the night before...) and it felt almost effortless.  I haven't become a gadget user yet, so didn't have the stress of responding to the intermittent statements uttered by my teammates phone, but the pace seemed pretty OK.  We reached the end of the road, the halfway mark, in a reasonable condition, then we stopped and stretched before heading back.

Unfortunately at that point things got harder. I don't know if it was the break in momentum, the psychological factor of realising we'd passed that 5k comfort zone, or just sheer undertrained muscles, but our momentum dropped and my right thigh started to ache.  Now, I am accustomed to weird pains in my left side due to a persistently trapped/pinched nerves, so I am able to override it but it does at times become an act verging on masochism. My teammates weren't feeling a whole heap better and now the sun was really beating down and we were a fair distance from the shady part of the road. But the way back is never a time I will give up as I know I can finsih, however slowly, so onwards we soldiered.


We continued, slower, realising we had no possibility of reaching our 10k in one hour target. Seeing the sign for Mt. Pleasant Village for the umpteenth time it finally dawned on me that those picturesque, derelict houses, regularly used for photo shoots had actually been functional as well as the ivy clad, roofless church. My distraction tactics didn't seem to be able to help the third member of our team, who started regretting more and more the four whiskeys he'd imbibed the night before and began walking for longer stretches, which had us slowing down and circling behind him, adding to our distance, but at least not stopping. I started to feel thirsty as I'd deliberately not brought my beloved Cytomax on the run in an attempt to curb my recent habit of over-hydrating following a particularly unpleasant 5k in a Triathlon where I dried up! I therefore became more anxious to finish what seemed to be becoming an inexorable run, just so I could have a drink....

Then finally , the end was in sight!  That's the beauty of training on familiar ground: you know the exact length of your torture, in metres even if not in time.  Miraculously all my strength returned, and I was able to pick up the pace and feel powerful once again, as opposed to the almost limping in a compromised manner I had been engaging in for the last 3.5k.  I didn't exactly sprint, but ran a whole heap faster than I had been, finishing strong before feeling the inescapable need to collapse onto my car while guzzling down my Cyto. That drink is truly fabulous, you just feel your cells plumping themselves back out, turning from raisin-like shrivelled up sacs to gloriously plump globe grapes...

As it was in fact a celebratory birthday run (yes..triathletes have a rather bizarre & possibly brutal way of celebrating landmarks...), we then had Prosecco in a can ...one of the better inventions of the year for the land of cooler fetes (can't wait to taste the other 'flavours'), and olive tapenade on crackers which didn't mean to be wheat based, so I forgave them, before devouring them.  I managed to get a strong tan line on my calves as we sat sipping our bubbly in the back of the pick up, enjoying the flexibility of our various work situations allowing us this opportunity and feeling pretty proud of our achievement.


The ensuing exhaustion and extreme thirst which lasted quite into the next day did not dampen my enthusiasm to actually register for this Half Marathon...so I'm now financially committed!

Doubts did cross my mind as I got an unpleasant image of the potential length of recovery after the actual race...and all the pain from the remaining 36 days of training. However, the pain didn't last as long as last time, and here I am two days later, seriously contemplating a long procrastinated hill run. I now realise I am going to have to run more, that the riding instead theory is not all bad and probably is helping with my overall fitness, but a little flawed in terms of the actual feeling of that heavy pounding on hard surfaces.  I haven't yet purchased the New Balance sneakers I've convinced myself I need; however, the Adidas are holding up pretty well, no ankle pains this time, which is another sign that I really can do this thing, even without perfect conditions!

So now to the kitchen to eat some scrambled eggs, homemade oat cookies and maybe a protein shake...then once that's digested... off I go for a hill pump with Soca!!