Okay I may have had a mild over dramatic freakout the night before my race, apologies but you guys know what I am like. In actual fact the race went really well and my time was not too bad and a personal best for me.
Finished the 10K in 1:01 and 410th in my category. Not too shabby especially for one who never jogged until a few months ago. I think I will do the half next year.
Also special congratulations to my hubby who successfully completed the half marathon with an amazing time of 1:58. I am so proud of you and you did fantastic.
Great day, great craic and the celebratory beer tasted amazing.
I'm coining the word Failcess as this 10K I am about to do, could go either way and I am preparing for the worst. Here I sit now on this eve of jogging, about to embark on my biggest running milestone, nay sporting milestone even and I feel well, tired really.
These last few days have seen me busy, up ridiculously early in the mornings and not sleeping at night, maybe it's a bit of pre-race jitters, I do not know but what I do know is that I want my leaba (thats Irish for my bed).
So plenty of rest and relaxation is the order of today and it couldn't come sooner. Yesterday was a bit of a terrifying eye opener that made me realise how easily my 10k could turn into a jogging nightmare. I think I had maybe only slept about 3 hours on Wednesday night, a weird mixture of Husband and I being a bit giddy, staying up messing around way past our bedtimes, restless stirring in ones sleep after finally conking out and how the wet weather is making the cars and trucks that pass the road in front of our apartment sound ever so louder. Then to makes matters worse I suddenly awoke with an overreactive gasp and the thought that I had left my umbrella in the entrance of our local convient store.
Similar example of my overreactive gasp
So I spent the morning lying in bed trying to salvage my last chance saloon of a few more hours sleep lamenting umbrellas lost only for when my alarm finally goes off and I sleepily shuffle to the front door to see said umbrella waiting for me, safe and sound. What unnecessary nonsense, why didn't I just get up and check, instead of incessantly flustering about my bed in a state of bother and unease? Oh what brolly folly!
Needless to say this lead to a day of wanderment surrounded in a sleepy haze, I was the 'Walking Unslept' but still had important things to do despite my zombification so had no time to rest all day. Yet when Husband arrived home from work and egged me on to do one last pre-race 5K, I foolishly went along with him. Oh dear, 1.5K in I realised that all figures in the distance were looking rather foggy and blurry to me, the only way to get my vision back was to walk slowly. This was worrisome. Then the inside of my mouth began to feel weird, kind of metallic, like it was full of blood yet also completely dry at the same time, I tried to spit to be sure there was no blood in my mouth but nothing came fort (sorry guys, this is kinda disgusting).
When I reached a fountain I gargled some water and spat it out to check and it came out clear, no blood. My exhausted mind was playing tricks on me but at this point I decided it was time to go home. Walked home, felt weird, slightly worried about the race now. Grr, why did I not trust my gut to not go out yesterday, this setback has sent me into a state of flux.
So today rest, relax, nada, bupkiss, I will veg on couch and to bed early. No worrisome brollies, no more terrible pre-race runs, just a whole lot of nothing. Tomorrow will come and go and whatever way I look at it there will be a good story to tell. The weather promises to be better and the town of Hallwill where the run is located is apparently beautiful. So whatever way it goes it will be worth the experience.
And finally the idea of failceeding is starting to seem more interesting to me than success or failure ever did. Three cheers for mediocrity and one bump to averageness.
All I ever wanted to say was that I did it anyway.
I just ran 10 kilometres, 10 bleedy kilometres. Christ, I certainly have come along way from this post a couple of months ago.
Bizarrely, when this song came on randomly in my shuffle it helped me sprint for the last kilometre. Who knew Girls Aloud would make for awesome jogging tuneage (don't judge me they are a guilty pleasure).
Awesome Jogging Tuneage:
I think I may be ready to reveal my Mystery Undertaking. Anybody got an idea yet?
Went out for another jog yesterday, probably my personal best yet in terms of distance and lack of tortuous stitches. It was a 25 degree day in Zurich and the sun was shining when I started. Things were going great, my app told me I was halfway so I did a 180 and started making my way back. It was at this point the rain came, at first I thought it was exhilarating, light speckles for rain to cool me down in this sweaty summer heat. Listening to some old school nineties trance I started to quicken my pace.
Then the heavens opened, the downpour came and I could barely see a few steps in front of me. Still kinda exhilarating up until a giant bolt of lighting struck close by me, suddenly leaves and branches were falling all around me, twirling in the air. If I wasn't nearly wrecked by this stage I should have been running for cover or my life (overdramatic yes, but that's who I am). What was exhilarating was becoming a tad hurricane like. But it did give me an incentive to run faster.
When I finally made it home I looked like this.
My runners had become a squelch-factory of moistness. Nary a part of me was not soaked.
Swimming Pool Runners anybody?
That said it could of been worse. A tree nearly fell on Husband (he's fine by the way).
I no longer want to punch jogging in the face. Yay, I am growing as a person. I almost did an update on this post a couple of weeks ago and let me tell you I was actually feeling an altogether different way. I had been doing over 6km and I just really was not able for it. Each day we'd go out jogging I would get worse. Jog less, walk more, get stitches all over and Husband on the other hand was just going from strength to strength. Every time I would pass a jogger that looked less fit than me but barely breaking a sweat I would want to claw his/her eyes out in frustration (I'm really not violent, honestly).
So I was almost about to give up when Husband and I decided that whilst we would start our jogs together I would do less and build up to it, defeat admitted to. I started using an App I had on my iPhone called 'Couch to 5K' and I am beginning to see great improvement because of it. I'm jogging about 4.3km in 33 minutes with the aim to work up to 5km in 30 minutes (I'm about 2 weeks away from this). Really starting to feel that I am no longer jogging's bitch.
On a negative note the Mayflies have spawned from the river in the last few days and are swarming all over trying to get horizontal with each other. This last run I swallowed three of them, tastes like feet, grossburgers.
