Back To Reality

• Posted: August 4, 2008
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• Author: Shéamus
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• Filed under: Workouts
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• Tags: No tags set for this entry.

Even after a few days here my bodyclock isn’t back to normal yet. Around 7-8pm each evening I suddenly become really, really tired - it is, after all, 1-2am UK time. But that can’t go on forever, so last night I made an extra effort to stay up later, and finally went to bed around 10.45pm.

Problem was, this resulted in me oversleeping, and I didn’t set out the door on my run this morning until just after 8.30am.

Big mistake. Big. Huge.

Well, costly anyway. My first mile was a solid 7:24, but it was all an illusion. After about a mile and a half the higher temperature - even just an hour later than yesterday it had already climbed into the mid-80s - and a humidity that was still (of course) at 100 per cent left me plodding along, sweat pouring off my body, thinking I’d happily give up one of my children for a tall glass of water. One foot in front of the other. Miles of 7:50 and 8:08 followed, the latter of which I mostly resembled the mutated Senator Kelly in X-Men.

Splits and chart:

Of course, this filled my mind with doubts about the race on Saturday. I’m going to do it, but I really want to do it well. Unfortunately, it also starts at 8.30am. Now, don’t get me wrong - that’s better than 2.30pm - but it’s going to be tough. Very tough. Hopefully the excitement of the day and the thrill of competition will push me to greater heights. I still have five days to prepare my body. I’ll be setting my alarm for six am for the rest of the week.

Worse: remember I said I was having trouble booking my place in the race because their system kept saying it wouldn’t accept my credit card? Well, I checked my account last night, and it seemed the system had no problems at all, as it’s charged me FOUR TIMES. To add insult to injury, it’s done this but when I check the participants’ part of their database I’m not even entered in the race! If I wasn’t crying I’d be laughing out loud at the madness of it all.

It’s times like this that I’m reminded that even with all the weight I’ve lost since the tail-end of last year my body is still too heavy for optimum running. I need to shift another 10-15 pounds. It’s gonna be tough, but without that I’m always going to struggle in these kinds of conditions.

We’re checking out a couple of local running stores today. I definitely need to get myself some kind of running cap and then to start doing that thing where I soak and chill it in the fridge/freezer before my runs. That will help a lot. I’m going to try and extend my workout to four miles tomorrow, and I think the cooling effect provided by that method might well be essential.

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