Week off then a Beautiful, Torturous Race

What a week, after my pathetic 7 miles last weekend I felt completely tired out. I'd had a lovely weekend with Doe and Matt and enjoyed an easy walk up Garway Hill on the Saturday, on Sunday morning however I ached all over. On Monday I still ached and had the shivers and generally felt yucky, even worse I had the tingle of a start of a cold sore which by Tuesday had spread over my entire top lip and a little on the bottom, very attractive. I booked a sports massage for Tuesday night which I knew was going to hurt, I was actually quite surprised and although there were moments of pain it was not so bad. Josie had said that my legs would ache the next day which they didn't really although they felt bruised to touch. I'd decided to give my legs a weeks break and do no training before my 20 mile race at Rhayader. The forecast for the race was not good, plenty of rain with the wind picking up, thankfully it stayed dry the entire race and wow, it was stunning. There's a killer hill about 3 miles in up the mountain road (the name says it all!) and this hill lasts for a good few miles. I plodded all the way up not stopping once and managed to keep plodding with no walk breaks, I was overtaken by a few people several times as when they started to walk I continued to plod it was a real game of cat and mouse all the way up. All my hill training is beginning to pay off, worryingly it is the flats that cause me the biggest issues. Once at the top you are rewarded with the view and a good downhill section. At this point I ran with a lovely Chepstow Harrier runner known as Zoom, I think her name was Susie. I lost her on the flatas she flew off, but there were some very friendly local runners who kept telling me what I had in store before the end of the race which was very helpful. At mile 18 my ankle started to hurt, to the point that I had to walk briefly, I wished then that I had some cold spray as I think that would have gained me a couple of minutes. I finished in 3:55:11 which was 5 minutes over what I wanted but is a good boost for the marathon. Most importantly I didn't hit the wall.

This morning, I can't walk and have just had to crawl down the stairs. My right knee does not feel good, think this will be another week of taking it easy before the Forest of Dean half! It was my birthday on Friday too so might actually treat myself to a glass of wine today:-)