The good, the bad and the very ugly

The plan of attack for this morning was 3hour cruisey run from home heading out towards Redcliffe and then just seeing what happened with regards to precise route.

Mr Chelle is in Melbourne and kindly sent me a 'good night luv I'm pissed' text at 4.50am, I was just dozing off again at 5.30 when my alarm went. I didnt realise it was so dark still at 6am, which my original planned leave time, as I was a girl running solo and the first couple of K's are very dark I waited another 20mins before heading off out in the dawn light.

I headed up towards the Hornibrook bridge, I thought I would do thirty mins out towards Redcliffe and then turnaround and do my usual route via Shorncliffe home which would make about 3 hours. I got a bit carried away though and my 30minutes was up well before I noticed so I figured I would just keep running and turnaround after 1.5hours for home.
It was a bit humid this morning, the roads looked like it had been raining all night so I finished most of the water I was carrying quite quickly... although a lot of parks around, there didnt seem to be too many drinking taps, I made a note to fill up on the next one I saw. It was such a nice run and pretty soon I was at Woody Point where the Jetty 2 Jetty run starts. Thought it would be kinda fun to do my own J2J, so following the coast I went through Margate and entered Redcliffe. I was feeling great and having a ball averaging about 5.30/km, quicker than my usual long run, but I'd just had three days off running so put it down to the mini-taper and kept going. I went past the Redcliffe SLSC and lagoon and ended up at the Jetty in 1hour 32mins, perfect. I took my one and only gel, refilled one of my waters, stretched for two mins and turnaround. That was the good part.

About 20mins in to my return journey I got slow legs, the ones that dont normally matter if you are with someone as they pull you through the struggle, after a few minutes I was good again.. then it hit again. I drunk some water, flicked through my i-pod to a really good tune and got going. I was okay for about another 20mins. By this time I was looking for more water, I was soooooo thirsty but couldnt find a tap anywhere. Still, it was cooler now, I was only about 10km from home and I was pretty sure there would be at least one tap between now and home..... couldnt find it mind. This was the bad.

I got back on to the pedestrian Hornibrook Bridge, there was a guy about 40meters ahead of me, he must have been hot as he had his shirt tucked in shorts and looked to be in pretty good form running in the same direction as me. The bridge, while only 2mins by car is actually almost 2km long, I decided to use him to keep me honest and wasnt going to let the gap between us widen... I checked Ms Garmin at one point and she was sub 5mins... eased up a bit but was still at 5.15's, feeling tired but okay. Then the heavens opened, took about 30seconds to become completely drenched, what I did learn from this experience is the shorts I often wear rub when its wet and my feet get blisters! When I got to the end of the bridge the topless man headed in the opposite direction to where I was going to go, this suited me fine and I took shelter under a small bridge while trying to work out why my ipod wasnt making any sound. Ipod fixed I started to head towards home, just 5km to go. F^(!*@, I went from hero to zero in 10seconds flat, worst 5km of my life, ever. I couldnt move, I ran for 1km and stopped, I just wanted to curl up on the side of the road in a ball and rock until Mr Chelle came and took me home, unfortunately he doesnt get back until next Friday and I am meant to be collecting him from the airport, so this wasnt really a choice. I was sooooooooo thirsty. Only 4km to go though now, it was the longest 4km, I could barely move at times, my head was willing my legs just werent. I half ran, half jogged when I could move and walked in between, Ms Garmin said I spent 17mins walking and 3hours 8mins running, so almost 3.5hours out there. Now that, was definitely the ugly part.

When I got home I grabbed my protein drink from the fridge, a lot of water and sat in a warm shower for a while... not too long though as today was shopping trip number one for a dress and I somehow managed to scrape myself off the floor to go and do that. Legs hurt a bit now though, but no injury pain. I dont know what went wrong today versus all other longruns, maybe I set off to fast, maybe I was dehydrated, maybe, maybe, maybe. What I do know though is I am no longer talking about times for the GC, I will run it and just see what happens :)


Details:
3hours 8mins
32km