After 8km, a few hills were a little harder than I had anticipated |
The early kilometres passed comfortably enough, with neither my right Achilles tendon nor my right arch injuries causing me excessive pain. After 8km, a few hills were a little harder than I had anticipated, confirming that this was going to be a hard run. By 15km, under a relentless sun, I couldn't stop thinking about how good it was going to be to stop, and kept telling myself to run efficiently.
By 15km, under a relentless sun, I couldn't stop thinking about how good it was going to be to stop |
As I walked along the sun-soaked footpath I was very tempted to lie down and close my eyes for just a couple of minutes in the shade of a tree in one of the small grassy parks I passed, or maybe on the bench in one of the bus shelters. This was a tell-tale sign of exhaustion, just as the longing for a Mars Bar is a sign that I have exhausted my glycogen stores and am burning fats.
With about 4.5km to go, I passed a car parked by the footpath and heard my name called. It was a fellow Terrigal Trotter, Alison, who had driven passed me and returned, wondering whether I needed help. I gratefully accepted her offer of a lift to where my car was parked, and my ordeal was over.
Although I had managed to run about 30km, it was demoralising not to finish the run as planned. At the time I injured my arch, just over two months ago, I had run the same course reasonably easily in a satisfactory time. It's hard to accept that, despite having resumed training more than a month ago, I'm still not back to where I was. I do hope that it's just the last vestiges of an ailment slowing me down and that normal service will shortly be resumed. However, as Alison said, at least we are running. She is running after missing more than a year with injury.
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