The mountains are calling .....

It's now less than one week before I toe the line at the Sinister 50 miler, and I am certainly getting excited! Unfortunately I don't feel as it nor as strong as I was hoping for, but after today's run out on the Devon trails, I am feeling more confident that it won't be a complete flop for me.

This past couple of weeks, I have felt extremely sluggish, stressed, and just not feeling the love for my running. I'm not sure why, but even my easy runs were feeling tedious, boring, and I was certainly lacking in motivation. I personally think that work has been stressing me far more than I thought, and my usual positive, happy go lucky attitude that I adopt for all aspects of my life was being replaced with a feeling of blah! 10 miles every day was getting boring, and I was feeling that things really needed mixing up if there was any hope of getting my mojo back.

I did head out to Devon a couple of weeks ago for a 25km trail run, and I felt far more motivated for that. It was tipping it down with rain, and I LOVE running in the rain! It also meant that there would be fewer people around which seemed perfect. Sometimes I do get fed up of being around people, of being sociable and friendly, and I sometimes find it hard work speaking to them. The persistent rain was perfect, and I hit the trails with a huge smile on my face. 

The trails that day were messy in parts with the heavy rainfall, the single track more so that the gravel, double track ones. I found it far too slippery to run properly,  and I was getting frustrated that things were taking much longer than I had anticipated. As I hit the single track, things were far more overgrown, so I was careful to take things easy to make sure I didn't trip on any hidden roots. Being shared with mountain bikers, there are a couple of wooden bridges on this stretch which had become extremely slippery. As I approached one of these bike bridges, I slowed down and cautiously shuffled across. The next thing I know, I hit the ground with a huge thud, bruising my knee, ankle, ribs, chest and shoulder all down the left-hand side. The shock of the fall sent me a little dizzy and I was concerned that I may have cracked a rib given how hard I fell, but thankfully all seemed fine the following day, with just some achiness in both my left arm and shoulder, and around my left knee.

Before the fall ...

I was so pissed off though, and it kind of ruined the rest of my run that day, which didn't help when heading in to the following week of training. I was finding my midweek runs hard work again, and despite trying to pick up the pace, I just seemed to be stuck at a 8.45 minute miling and couldn't get my body to move any quicker.

Another run out in Devon the following week was much, much better, and finally, it felt like my mind was back in the right place. The weather was warm and sunny - probably too warm for me personally, and I got so warm that I did run out of water with about 2 miles still to go. I was very happy with how things went otherwise though, and whilst I don't read too much in to silly Strava segments, I was pretty happy to see some PRs on some of them that appeared on my chosen route. That day I ran a good 25km with a decent amount of elevation - I was starting to feel far more confident about my 50 miler.

Better run on the trails, and feeling stronger at last 

In addition to running the hilly trails whenever I could, I had started to do daily strength sessions, and included weighted stepups in my regime. The stepups were definitely working my legs, and I was starting to feel some strength building at last.

Going into last week, I was certainly feeling more optimistic. I did a progression run which went relatively well despite temperatures close to 30 degrees celsius again, and I was finally looking forward to my 10 mile run on the Wednesday. But I didn't get to run, because my little pup Wilson became ill again, and I spent over 6 hours at the emergency vets that night instead.

Poor Wilson, He's now twelve and a half years old, and this time, he was straining to pee, and when he did pee, it came out as a tiny dribble that included blood. He did a poop that showed blood too, and he was quite obviously in painful discomfort around his abdomen. Having been diagnosed with pancreatitis earlier in the year, I thought that maybe he was having a more severe case, and when friends spotted us at the dog park, they agreed that he needed to head to the vets.

We went through another bout of blood tests, urine samples, xrays, IV drips, and this time, he had a catheter inserted to see if there was a blockage in his bladder. There was no evidence of a blockage, although when removing it, a clot of blood did come out with it which may have been contributing to some of the problem. He wasn't eating and didn't eat for almost two days, which meant I was unable to give him half of his tablets that had been prescribed as they need to be taken with food to avoid causing tummy problems. I was worried.

I took the following day off work to stay home with him, and by Friday, things were slowly improving, so I did manage to sneak in a short 5 miler where I ran better than I expected, especially given the lack of sleep and all the extra emotional stress of the past couple of days.

By Saturday, Wilson had greatly improved, so I decided to do the full 10 miles that I had on my schedule. It was a really good run, I felt strong, and I enjoyed running around the local lake, feeling far more optimistic about my race in just a week's time.  The run ended as we were under a severe thunderstorm watch, and I ran as fast as my legs would allow when I saw the lightning strike in the nearby field, which caused a power outage for a couple of hours across the city.

Wilson by Saturday - he finally came out for a little walk :)

Soggy wet after being caught in a bad thunderstorm

Sunday's weather was much better although it was cool and very breezy. Yet I was really looking forward to running again, and given that the dogs had been ok the previous day, I decided to head out to Devon again to get one last hilly trail run in before my race next weekend.

Feeling happy and strong, and ready to race next week!

If I was starting to feel hopeful of a better run next weekend, today's run further affirmed that things were going to be ok. My legs felt strong, the pace felt relatively easy, and I ran more of those Strava segment PRs, including some on the climbs. I did the 10 miles with nearly 1000 ft of climbing in around 1 hour  minutes - a good pace for me, especially on muddy,hilly trails on a wet and windy day. I was really happy and feeling far more confident about my race.

We travel down to Crowsnest Pass next Friday, and we'll be camping for the weekend, with the race on Saturday. I haven't ran in the mountains for quite a while now, but I am still looking forward to getting out there and spending time on those trail. I may not have the run I was hoping for when I first entered the race, but so long as I have fun and enjoy every minute, I really don't mind. We're all getting older now and sometimes life gets in the way of my running, and that's ok. So long as I can still run when I can, stay fit and healthy, and run in races giving my best, I'm perfectly ok with that :)