Less Panic, More Run

Tuesday: Hatless again today and the weather continued to grate, not the cold so much, more the incessant sunshine...nothing boded well for today's run, but perhaps there is no such thing as an omen. I left my bottle of water in the car, considering my breakfast as fuel enough for me. As with yesterday, I gave the 5km race route another go, making my target the top of the hill. With yesterday's mistakes assessed, I paced myself better and planned to stick to the doable target set. Having reached the top, I decided to keep going, see how far my body could go, and much to my surprise, I managed to hold on and do the entire route, though fetch is calculating it as 4.33km. I am either making a mistake with tracing part of the route or I am measuring inaccurately online. Whatever the situation, I timed myself at 30mins 53 secs, which was a lot better than I expected. The downhill helped me to keep going and get some of my breath back, though the last stretch is flat and it was incredibly tough to find the energy for it. I didn't feel a high on finishing the run, I think the uncertainty around the exact route still bothers me and I didn't know whether to be pleased with my time or not. I went for a very long walk around the park afterwards to relax; despite an intense run, I felt anxious and stressed. This is not completely due to running but I guess I need to deal with keeping a mental focus on running when I am doing it and not let other things ruin my performance. My head was aching after the run which has never happened before, and my hands were trembling, though this was more due to lower blood pressure. The right calf had felt a little stiff and heavy at times during the run, but nowhere near as troubling as it can be. Perhaps the last few rest days have had a positive impact on it. I planned on tomorrow being a rest day, after two days of tough running, but considering the kids are going on hoidays from nursery and school, I know running time will be precious over the next couple of weeks. So it's best I get some running in tomorrow. The plan is to avoid all uphill tomorrow, which might sound contradictory to my previous thoughts, but I know I must be careful not to overdo things. I will use tomorrow's time to build up my endurance and get some more mileage under my belt; my drink of choice will be Powerade, which has been so highly recommended to me, and it gets a try-out as a race drink tomorrow.