The last big dress rehearsal is over and the results are in

It is just over a month until the Wellington Marathon, and it was time to see how well I have progressed in my training. I’ve been doing some hills and some trail running, and lately a bit of speed work.

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What sort of difference will it make to my time on a 40km run?

The last time I did this was on the 1st of April (because I’m a fool hehe). It was pretty ugly, but I managed the distance and arrived back home after 5 and a half hours.

One of my goals in running the marathon is to not be the last person to finish after everyone else has packed up and gone home. At 5 ½ hours, I might not be the last person, but the last person would be just behind me. I need to get this done a lot faster.

So yesterday (yes, I was so shattered when I got home last night that I couldn’t even write this post) I set off on my last attempt at the distance to see if I had made any improvement.

It was an almost perfect late autumn day in Wellington, nice and sunny and about 14 degrees Celsius, with pretty much no wind.

My first 10kms were completed in just under an hour, and I was feeling pretty good. I didn’t feel like I was pushing the pace at all. Compare that to my earlier attempts to do 10kms in an hour where I felt I was dying!

The second 10kms were a little slower, 1.02 mins. Still a really good time and I was still feeling quite good.

Then the wheels fell off.

After the 21st kilometre I walked for a bit and ate a One Square Meal to keep my energy levels up. This would stop my blood sugar from dropping a little later on. This works well for me, so it wasn’t a problem.

But shortly afterwards my legs started to tell me that I had been running quite fast for longer than they had signed up for and they wanted to know when I was going to finish. When I told them joyfully that we had just passed half way, they got very grumpy.

There was an added complication.

Last weekend when my dad was staying with us, I broke a rib (don’t ask). Up until the run yesterday I figured it was bruised, maybe cracked a little, no drama. But it is definitely broken (I can now feel the bone moving) and it began to make its presence felt more and more. It also set off a huge knot in the muscles under my shoulder blade on the same side (my right), which made breathing quite painful and difficult.

Every part of my body was telling me to stop, and I seriously considered pulling the pin and going home. It was not fun at all.

But this was my last big test before doing the marathon. If I didn’t complete this run, then I couldn’t really sign up for the race, because I had failed to go the distance in training, so how could I expect to go the distance on the day?

So I persevered and dragged myself over the hill and onto the start of the fourth and final lap. It was mostly slightly downhill for a long stretch so I pushed myself to run it at pace, trying to pull back some time, knowing that I would be crawling for the rest of the circuit.

In the end there was a bunch of walking done, way more than I wanted. But I made it home in one piece.

I didn’t achieve my targeted goal for improvement, which was to be an hour faster. But I was 50 minutes faster, so I’ll take that as a win.

Stats from Mr Garmin

• Distance: 39.57km
• Time: 4.38
• Average pace: 7,02 min/km
• Level of agony: first 20km – 2 second 20km – 8

This is where the report normally ends, because the rest is just mundane walking around my house groaning and moaning about sore legs.

But this time my wife decided to be helpful.

I asked her to massage the knot under my shoulder blade to see if I could get some release of the muscle and reduce some of the pain.

She asked if I wanted some Deep Heat rubbed into it (I don’t usually use this as the fumes put me off). I said ok.

So she then empties most of the tube on my back and rubs it into my entire back.

“Do you want some on your legs too?”

It seemed like a good idea, so I said “Yes.”

“Do you want the front and the back also?”

Again it seemed like a good idea.

So I said “Yes.”

So my wife proceeded to use most of the rest of the tube on my legs, and for good measure, on my bollocks!

I spent the next four hours wishing for the level 8 agony of running. It seemed like a picnic compared to what I was suffering now.

My back was on fire, but I was freezing cold and shivering. My nether regions were screaming at me and firing red hot needles of pain with every heartbeat.

On the plus side, my legs don’t feel too bad today, so maybe it had some good effect.

But that is one hard lesson learned. Never let the wife put Deep Heat on your legs!

And what does my wife think of it all?

I’ll ask her for you, once she stops laughing.

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Check out my stories here on Steemit

Running Deer

Running Deer - part 1
Running Deer - How legends are born

Charlie Rabbit

Meet Charlie Rabbit
Charlie tides up
Charlie Rabbit and Margery Mouse
Charlie Rabbit and Margery Mouse make music

Little Peppers Adventures

Runaway Rabbit and the hungry fox
Maybe and the land of purple rainbows – A Little Peppers adventure
How Pappa Pepper and Monster Truck the Pepper got their wild hogs - a Little Peppers Adeventure

Dark Angel Regiment of the Space Marines - Mission Files

First Squad Sniper Elite - Zaresith mission

Other stories

Stranded
The Lady Of The Lake

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Also don't forget to check out my Dad's blog

Who else can tell you stories about impersonating an officer, stealing a military aircraft to go on a booze run, or steal military aircraft and go on an unsanctioned bombing run - and that's all before he turned 18!

Check out @len.george and find out what other madness he got up to!

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