It's been a quiet day here in my world (applied for jobs, read a bit, wrote a book review). I did however catch up on the long run I missed on Sunday.
I headed out about 1600 in cool sunlight and had in mind to go maybe as far as Wallis Road. I was going well and keeping a good pace when at about the 4km mark a cramp came out of nowhere and belted through my left calf, Not a small cramp either - an exclaim-in-pain, grab-at-the-damn-thing-and-stop-and-try-to-stretch cramp. I thought about quitting and going home, but a degree of pigheadedness crept in. This was partly motivated by having read a fairly self-pitying blogpost from a "fathlete" who was complaining about having to actually train to take part in an Ironman event
When I set this goal for myself I knew that the training would be difficult, but I believed that I would put in the training hours and the improvement would happen and I would finish the event. Except that’s not what happened, I put in the training hours but my speed just has not increased enough. It’s super frustrating. I had some improvements in speed but I also had long plateaus, and even backslides, in between those improvements.
It’s possible that part, if not all, of that is that I’m not working hard enough – basically that because I don’t enjoy these workouts and I’m struggling just to make myself do the workouts in the first place (and not quit once I’ve started) that I’m mistaking misery for difficulty and thus not working as hard as I think I am – we’re working on some techniques to fix this.
With that fairly risible example before me, I decided I'd finish this run if I had to limp the rest of the way. So, off I hobbled and my calf did in fact loosen up a bit as I went, and I just kept adding a little bit and a little bit to the run until I noticed I was at the 10.5 kilometre mark and I basically completed a half-marathon distance by default.
It was worth it for the sense of achievement when Runkeeper clicked over the 21 kilometre mark, although I noticed that as soon as I stopped and began to cool down my left calf began to lock up, causing me to hobble quite a lot. Hopefully this will resolve by morning.
— Stephen Tuck (@sdtuc2) November 15, 2016The other plus was that I weighed in this evening and found I'd shed a bit more weight. Roll on 75 kilos!
Not much more to add. Hope all your days are starting out well!
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