Sunday 26 November 2017

Extreme training

The title of this post may be slightly misleading but you'll get the point quickly.  It feels like the season "to be jolly" but that's like Black Friday, a bit early.  This week has been really busy from a work point of view and I've had 5 days (well 4 but the fifth is just about to start) of socialising!
On Wednesday I was at a conference in Harrogate which involved a long day and too many liquid carbs.  Early train to London and a dinner with clients and those liquid carbs reappeared.  Early start to fly back hope and dinner with friends, and you guessed it, excessive liquid carbs.
Early start on Saturday then off to Chatelherault for the usual run with my pals.  I may have improved my time by 50 secs to complete the lap in 45 min dead, but I was in no fit state to hold a conversation for at least 5 minutes.  I had to dig really hard and that's the point of this extreme training.  An 8k run can feel like an ultra marathon because my body was wrecked from the previous three days.
You'd think I'd learn.
I cooked a delicious rib eye steak on Saturday night so that had to be accompanied by some red wine - it would have been a waste of a steak if there was no wine!  This morning I had a wee bit of a lie in, I needed it, but then headed out in a crispy cold morning for a 10k run.  My time was down on last week and in part this was down to the icy conditions - I was like bambie on ice and couldn't push off too hard without slipping.  But my physical condition also slowed me down but I battled through it.  Feeling crap and out of breath is something that normally happens on longer runs but I got to deal with this on a short run.
It's not a training schedule I'd recommend but at this time of year the social events can mount up.  I'm now just heading out for what will probably turn into another carb loading session with some pals.  But after this one I'll behave more like an athlete and limit the carb loading on consecutive days (5 in a row!).  Just goes to show I'm not always well behaved although as I've tried to justify above, I was only trying to improve my endurance!