In Which I Get All Sweaty
Once upon a time (as all the good stories go) there was a boy. Handsome, dedicated and headstrong. I hated him, so decided to write about me instead.
I’m sure you’ve been looking for Ironman training updates but alas, a combination of illness and injury put a damper on all that jazz for a bit. A couple weeks ago I stepped funny at work and twisted my ankle a bit, which caused my knee to twinge, which made me miss out a full week of training. (I still walk about 10-12 miles a day at work though, but at a slow pace.)
The following week I got a bit of flu. Not enough to phone in sick, but enough that it hurt a bit to breathe and sneeze and cough. Another week missed.
That brings us to last week, where I found myself lining up for the Leeds 10km run in 25 degree heat with my mate Rob. It’d been almost 2 weeks since I last ran, and didn’t have much confidence in my legs, figuring they’d be about as much use as a chuffing baby giraffes.
Bloody hell it was warm.
I did my best to conserve the water I’d brought along as I hadn’t remembered to check where or how many water stations were along the course. (Rookie mistake Hemmy!)
Feel free to tag yourself
The race started at 09:30 but due to 10’000 other runners (well, 9’998 if you don’t count me and Rob) we didn’t cross the start line until about 09:45. Hot.
It was a slow start due to the amount of runners, but I didn’t fancy pushing myself in the heat and with the lack of training so it suited me well. We were keeping a decent pace of around 8:30min/mile and were chatting quite happily. Don’t really get much time to chat so it was a good excuse. A little into the race I saw another friend, Neil, who was running the race for charity but didn’t look too chuffed about it.
A water station arrived around 2miles ish (I mean we got to it, it didn’t just turn up along side us) and the water was a god send. Rob lost his energy gels somewhere around here, so if you found some, keep them.
5km went by easily enough and we were still keeping a pace of 8:45min/mile which wasn’t too bad considering the crowd and heat, but my word was I sweating!
Turn around arrived and on the way back I saw Neil again so gave him a shout of encouragement, and saw a girl I went to school with (Kirsty?) so waved to her too. 2nd water station, and grabbed a bottle of lovely refreshing cold warmish water. It was water though, so wasn’t gonna complain! At around 8km I saw my other mate Duffy up in front so we caught up with him and had a bit of a chat (because he’s moving back from Newcastle next week) and he said he’d catch up with us at the end, so we carried on. A little bit further on there were four lasses dressed as cheer leaders cheering at the side if the road so I did the grown up thing and squirted my water at them. 3 laughed, one looked pissed.
The heat was obviously a little too hot as we went by a couple of runners receiving medical attention on the ground at the side of the road. I didn’t hear anything about them after the race, so hope they’re both ok and recovered well.
Leeds has a nice slight uphill right before the downhill that leads (leeds) towards the end which is just what you want, but we carried on running and got towards the finishing part. Rob said we should go across holding hands (in the air), so thats what we did and both finished in exactly the same time of 57:12. Happy enough considering the conditions!
Like REAL men
New medal, new tshirt and a kit-kat chunky were my reward, along with a LOT of sweat.
After a shower and a change of clothes (into my new tshirt, naitch) we all went over to Bolton to watch Rob (other Rob, Ironman Rob) race the Ironman UK triathlon. He finished in a VERY impressive 11hours 38mins. Chuffing machine!
So after my 10km on sunday I’ve trained both monday and tuesday, back into the swing (run) of things. I’m toying with the idea of concentrating on marathon training because York Marathon is in 12 short weeks, and having missed a few weeks of Ironman training, it’d make sense. I’ll still chuck in a long ride once a week though. We’ll see what happens!
In Other News
I know I’m rubbish at replying to comments, but I read them all and love the messages of support. Eventually, I’ll reply to each and everyone. Not ignoring them. Thanks!
Marc Hemingway 