I’m having some internet issues at home, so posting is a
little delayed.
Sunday was the UK Women’s League (Division 1) fixture in
Wigan. A double header with Division 3, which makes for a very long day but
does have the benefit of including Katarina Johnson Thompson who competes for
Liverpool I think. Our division has Seren Bundy Davies competing, but our very own GB youngster Charlotte McLennaghan took her down. It’s great to
see the GB athletes turning out for club fixtures.
I picked up one of our youngsters an inflicted my music on
her for the 2 and a half hour journey cross country. Eating was a nightmare. I
wanted to eat my 'safe' packed lunch 3 hours before my event, but there was absolutely nowhere to stop
on the A50. I had to wait until the first service station on the M6, by which
time it was just over 2 hours before my event, and only an hour and a half
before I needed to start warming up. Not surprisingly this did not go well. I
was gurgling and churning throughout the warm up and felt nauseous to boot.
I was hoping to run a marginal PB and had the splits written
on my hand. I was right on target for the first four laps but I was out in
no-mans land and just couldn’t hold the pace with no windbreak and no-one
within chasing distance. I faded badly and ended with a very disappointing
11.09 and second to last place.
However, every point counts and I still scored 5 of them as
not all clubs had a B string runner, so I did contribute to our team winning
the match and also the entire league. Promotion to the Premier Division is
ours!
Monday was just an average Monday. I made it out of bed
early enough to go to the gym for my 4 mile recovery run, then it was back to
the gym in the evening for another 9 miles and Body Pump class.
Tuesday should have been a nice easy 8 miler, but I was
struck down. Stupid, stupid IBS. I’d ‘been’ before I left the house, and it had
been rather a lengthy stay. Needless to say it was therefore a surprise to find
myself cramping up. I had to stop and walk/shuffle with my cheeks clenched
until I made it to the local leisure centre, where there such ludicrous volume
of cow-pat style explosion that I fear I actually blocked their loo! Just imagine
if there hadn’t been a handy leisure centre. What on earth would I have
done????
Not entirely surprisingly I had cramps all morning on
Wednesday and had to take Buscopan. Then just after 5pm I had more loose and
urgent movements, so I popped some Loperamide. Bad plan. I had a race that
evening and was trying to avoid a repeat of the first Summer League Fixture
where I near ground to a halt mid race for fear of explosion. There could be no
explosion of course, but instead I had horrendous cramps and such stabbing pain
under my sternum that I could barely breathe. I went from hoping to finish
first to accepting 4th place, until the only girl who could possibly
overtake me in the overall standings came up on my shoulder with maybe half a
mile to go. Fight or flight kicked in and I pushed on, leaving her behind and
also passing the two Worksop girls I’d allowed to pass me earlier. I crossed
the line in agony and had to go and hide behind a little outbuilding for a
while. So I finished second in the race and maintained my second place over
all. The disaster of a first race meant I needed some sort of miracle to win
the league this year. I did win my age category, but that’s small consolation
when the over all winner is actually in an OLDER category. Ah well. We also
failed to get a strong team out and only finished second team, having gone into
this final race with a decent margin.
I was up multiple times during the night with cramps and so
on. So I was desperately tired on Thursday and had to take a rest day.
Today marks the 50 day countdown to the marathon and involved a 15 mile MLR in near darkness. At 6pm in August. Got to love the British 'Summer'.
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