A few years ago, my friend Claire and I went on a mini-roadtrip in her car to the Lake District. We went to 13 places in 36 hours and it was so much fun. I loved the freedom of being able to just drive to wherever we wanted ... so when I got back, on a whim, I bought a car. Never mind that I live in Zone 1/2 in London and had lived here perfectly happily for years without one ... I just really really NEEDED a car right then. I've managed to justify all the cash it's cost me since by using it for all the triathlons I used to do all over the country, plus visiting my one friend who lives out of town (but who works in town, and whom I only ever see in London. But still. I could visit her in St Albans now.).
Today I realised a new and excellent use for my car - he morphed into my own personal aid station! As I keep moaning about, I'm finding nutrition really really hard to manage because I'm not hungry when I'm running or walking but I'm not that keen on bonking. I know that the aid stations in the run have soup, and I also know that loads of blogs and forums suggest that soup is your best friend on an ultra, but I haven't been able to cart a thermos of soup around with me in my hydration vest. However, I figured that if I drove to Richmond Park to do the 45km walk that was on the schedule for this week (after my failure to do it last week), I would be able to leave the soup in the car, together with any other food, and then I could stop by and fuel myself up every time I passed the parking lot. I put together some soup in a flask, some soup bread and some peanut butter sandwiches. With those and a ChiaCharge bar and some ChiaCharge trail mix I thought I was pretty sorted - and I even had a variety of food to choose from!
With the fact that I had to pass by the parking lot on several occasions throughout the session, I decided to do loops of the perimeter of Richmond Park. I knew that it was just over eleven kilometres around which meant that four loops would be about 45km all up, and it would give me three aid station stops along the way (and loo stops!). This is not the most interesting route! However, it does have some varied terrain - there is a sort of sandy path, some woods, some off-road paths, hills and flats, so it was good training.
Originally, the plan had been to walk 45km in order to get used to the distance without completely screwing myself over for training for the rest of the week. However, I learned last week that if I start off walking, running half way through is really really hard - my ankles feel like they're going to break. Therefore, I decided it would be much more sensible to start off run/walking and see how I got on. I had no idea how much to do, but I thought I'd try running the first 200 metres of every kilometre, no matter what the terrain at the time. That way I'd be able to have lots of recovery, but I'd have to run uphill, downhill, and on the flat, plus I'd have to run on every type of terrain.
Getting back to the run itself, the first loop was pretty good - the run/walking was working well, and I hadn't seen the perimeter path before so it was interesting. I decided that in addition to running the first 200m of every kilometres, I'd do some bonus runs as well, so I ran every downhill as well. This kept my times down as well so that it didn't feel like I was taking quite so long about the whole thing! There were a lot of deer out today as well. Despite the fact that they were looking placid, I was a bit nervous as it's getting very near rutting season. However, they were beautifully well behaved and even posed for a picture for me when I asked nicely.
After the first loop, I stopped by my car to have some soup and bread. I'd decided that cream of chicken was the answer to all my problems in life, because I felt like my soul needed as much help as my body on such a long session. I don't even LIKE soup normally, but it worked perfectly - I started my second loop feeling extremely good about soup!
By the end of the second loop I was starting to get pretty tired though, so I had a nice long rest (about six minutes) sitting in the boot of my Mini, and I had more soup and bread. I was still feeling very good about soup - the only thing is that it was incredibly salty. I couldn't decide whether that was good - in order to replace the salts that I was losing, especially as I wasn't drinking any electrolyte drinks - or bad, because it was making me more dehydrated. I still don't know the answer but it tasted good so I was happy.
The third loop was a little bit of a bust - I had to stop and have a long phone call (like 15 minutes!) in the middle of it, and I also had to stop and brush a bunch of dirt out of my shoes which meant it was my slowest loop overall. I almost thought I'd stop after that loop as it would've been nice to salvage part of my day, but it seemed silly to fail to do the full distance again. Therefore, after another long break and a peanut butter sandwich (which are my other new favorites!) I set off for the final loop. This was not fun!!! I was basically just in pain the whole way round this one. My dodgy foot had started to hurt in loop 2, but I'd ignored it and carried on, and that was really not happy about that and let me know it! In addition my left hip flexor was tightening the whole time and the irritating trapped nerve at the top of my left leg was reminding me that it's not a massive fan of running. I was so so proud that I still managed to run the first 200m of every kilometre, and I even still managed to run all the down hills as well. I feel good about that because it makes me think I will be able to do it in the challenge (on the first day at least haha). I've never been so happy to see my car though! I got back there at 44.93km, which was obviously a totally unacceptable number, so I walked around the car park until I got to 45km - hurrah!! I scarfed the rest of my soup bread (I sacked off the final bit of soup because I knew I was going to have supper pretty soon after I got home), put the radio up and drove home SO HAPPY TO BE DONE!
As soon as I got home I hit the bath - it was AMAZING. I got myself sorted with Live at the Apollo on iPlayer, a nice bottle of banana milk and a big bottle of water and just relaxed for 45 minutes. I finally hauled myself out to scarf a spag bol (left over from the night before, which was ideal as I only had to shove the spaghetti in a pot and heat up the meat in the microwave, which was about all I could handle!). My legs were extremely grumpy, so I massaged in some Antiflamme (aka Nature's Kiss) and got my compression socks on - so sexy, such a fashion statement.
Today is however a rest day, and it's raining, and it's bank holiday, so I intend to walk no further than from my sofa to my kitchen. Perfect day!
No comments:
Post a Comment