Well it was quite an interesting weekend in terms of training as I learned a valuable lesson in maintaining hydration on Saturday. Having had a busy morning I didn’t manage to get out on the road until about 3pm, by which time it was pretty warm and it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d not drunk anything since a couple of coffees early that morning. I should have realised the mild headache I had when I went out was dehydration but off I went on a planned 14 mile run. I realised things were going wrong after about 2.5 miles when, despite the heat, I hadn’t so much as broken a sweat and my legs were getting heavier and heavier to the point at which I ground to a halt with a feeling of zero energy. I was wearing my hydration pack fortunately and had added ice to it to keep the water cool but I simply could not get fluid into myself fast enough to get myself back on-line. I carried on with a jog-walk-jog but had already decided to abort the session and arrived back home after 5 miles in total – still without breaking a sweat! It was at least an hour later and after 2 or 3 pints of water that I started to feel normal again so that was a good lesson learned.
The following day, having taken on board the warnings from Saturday, I went out fully-hydrated and easily clocked up 13.1 miles. The first 4 miles I spent coaching my wife along who is now training for her first 10k so it made a nice slow start for me (don’t tell her I said that) before I headed off for the remaining 9 miles at my usual average marathon pace. You can see Sunday’s route here.
I only have 2 weeks now until Cheltenham so will probably do another 13-14 miles next weekend with the obligatory speedwork in between but as this next race is a trail run I’m really not sure what to expect – one thing I know for sure though is that it will be a slow one as I think the course record is nearly 4 hours!!
