Something went wrong today. It was not immediately obvious but not everything clicked into place as I wanted. I'm not able to identify the causes either. Was it yesterday's run and trying to do too much, too soon? Was it due to the excess of alcohol with Laurence, Dad and Liz last night? Was it due to the lack of sleep accumulated during the week and the stress of work at the moment ? Whatever the reason, it didn't feel good and all the recent enthusiasm I've been having with the improvements in my training on the track went right out of the window.
I've got a couple of races coming up very soon: the 10km on Friday evening and then the 58 km trail in Brittany in June. I reckoned I needed to get some distance in for the trail and I was quite happy to run the long course around Feucherolles and St Nom la Breteche for a little over 30km to put some distance training in.
I filled up the camelbak and set off running the first kilometre in 5:11 into the forest. I increased the pace very gradually to run each kilometre in 4:50 after 5km. I wasn't able to increase the pace but I wasn't too bothered to begin with as I was focusing on completing the circuit in good conditions. By the time I got to the top of Princess Road after 11km, I was still feeling fairly fresh, if unable to go any faster. It was peculiar the feeling that I still had energy, but I wasn't able to summon any to increase my speed and I stopped looking at the Garmin at this point and just concentrated on maintaining a steady pace.
The highlight of the circuit was going through Feucherolles and seeing the end of the 24 hour running race: 24h des Yvelines.The runners looked surprisingly spritely and fresh despite the 24 hours on their feet, running around a 1600 metre circuit in the St Gemme quarter of Feucherolles (the winner managed to run 217km in this time or 135 loops of the circuit!). I pushed on and ran back into St Nom la Breteche and back up the hill towards St Germain. This was the killer for me and by the time I got to the top, I was exhausted and my energy drained from me. I was just looking to finish now. My fastest kilometre was in 4:18 downhill into St Germain whereas I normally run this in 3:50 or thereabouts.
I ran/walked quickly up the hill into St Germain and then limped home the last 7 or 8 kilometres. It was not impressive and I felt that not only had I not managed to run steadily, I hadn't managed to run reasonably at any point. It can only get better.
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