Manchester-Week 15

The week in numbers ...

Miles ran: 30
Chocolate eaten: 1 Twirl and Toblerone bites
Easter eggs eaten: 1 large and 1 medium
Pizza eaten : none
Wine drank:  2 bottles
Beers drank: 1 pint

Weight: Monday 11st2lb
                    Sunday 11st2lb

It's club tonight. 

Again a day of work with back to back appointments from 8am. On my feet all day isn't helping my knee but I get on the foam roller every opportunity to ease it off.

Off to the club for lower prom reps and 4 mile warm up first. Legs feel okay on the warm up, knee and shin feels stiff but it'll be fine.

Tonight it's lower prom reps and I go with C as I don't want to be a twat. Problem here is Ben's in C and he brings out the twat in me. 

Plan is nothing silly, we start and I sit mid group and on the lower prom let everyone go past, up the hill and turn and then I try and reel the group in with a kick. This works well and I manage it on reps 1-5.

Rep 6, Ben goes off at silly pace and I go off at normal pace, up the hill and I can hear a group coming up behind me, it'll be B team and as I turn at the top I decide as B come past I'll match the pace and go with them. Rob comes past, I lift my pace and go with him, after 50m or so I remember Rob is in A team not B and he's off the front of A team and I'm following him, oh shit. Now I could slow down here but now I'm commited and want to see if I can stay with him.

Rep 6 done and I'm utterly broken.

Rep 7 and Ben goes off even harder and this ain't happening, up the hill and do a half arsed kick to catch a few people but not this time Jamison.

Home and my knees hurting, foam roll and compression boots and rest day tomorrow to manage this and make sure I make the start line.

It's the final threshold run before the marathon, it's a relatively easy one of 3 x 3km as a marathon and threshold sandwich.  

I love sandwiches, you can't beat a good sandwich but you of course can beat a bad sandwich. 

Now as a vegetarian you can make a damn fine sandwich but ever tried buying one in Tesco's in Whitley Lodge? Well don't bother, and for that matter don't bother in co-op either as they're all shit.  

Contrary to popular belief vegetarians can eat more things than cheese and salad. We also like food to be spicy, flavourful and basically everything it can be apart from having meat in it. When you're given the option between Cheese savoury and some kind of falafel wrap it's like choosing between seeing Bain in his short shorts or his underpants, it's a no win situation. Cheese savoury is awful, it's soggy and bland so stop making it. And don't even get me started on putting falafels in sandwiches, they are dry, dry and tasteless. You may as well just stick a sponge between two slices of bread. A meal deal should allow you to change the sandwich to chocolate and the crisps to chocolate and the drink is okay as a drink but you could maybe downgrade the drink to a smaller drink with some chocolate.

I got sidetracked by sandwiches.

Falafel fucking sandwich.

Oh and co-op also do an onion bhaji sandwich, it's even shitter than it sounds.

I believe both Tesco and co-op are vegetarian racists.

So anyway it's 3 x 3km with first km at mara pace, second km at threshold and final km at mara pace, recover and go again. It's 2 mins recov but I decide to cut this to 1 min because I need to be home for work and for some reason I think cutting 2 mins from an hour long session will make all the difference.

It's windy but not too bad, session done with no issues and head home.

As the day goes on I can feel my tibialis muscle aching and if I bend down my left knee hurts like hell.

Onion bhaji sandwich for fucks sake.

I spend a lot of Friday testing to decide what to do this weekend. My plan has a 14 mile run on it and I've done very little running this week and really need to do this one as a confidence boost as I've had a total crisis of confidence over the last 2 weeks. My knee hurts when I bend it and my tibialis anterior muscle aches and feels numb.

I decide today to do the 14 miles but keep a lot of it close to home so I can stop if I need to.

Up early as Murphy isn't well, his swollen ear looks nasty and he's utterly miserable.  I'm worried about him and haven't really slept for last couple of nights, up at 6:30am to go and sit with him for a bit and then I decide I just need to get this run done. Out the door at 7:30 and 11 miles to do before I arrive in Blyth.  

I just can't get into it, the pace is fine but feels harder than it should, not even Madonna belting out 'like a prayer' can lift me from this mood. I'm not enjoying the run, I feel sluggish and tired, I'm sitting roughly around marathon pace and I've only done 7 miles.  

Heading up past the caravan park towards the Deleval Arms and I'm into a headwind and going uphill and I really want to go home. I feel sick, tired and fed up. Dont be a fucking baby Simon, suck it up and get it done and then you can go home. I'm running and thinking about taking Murphy to the vet afterwards.

Get to parkrun, have a chat with Quynh and a few others and then we're off. First mile is over fairly quick but I just want to to stop and walk, Natasha passes me and doesn't even take the piss, not even she kicks a man when he's down.

Coming up to the first full lap and I convince myself it's just that half lap and then one lap and I'm finishing, I know this is a lie but I'm a convincing liar.

Pass the finish line, turns out there's another lap to run, you fucking liar Simon. The final lap feels so slow and I'm sure it's about 9 minutes miles and I'm dragging my feet along, turns out it was still around 7:40 pace but didn't feel like it.

And then I'm done.  

13.7 miles done at 7:42 mile pace.

I feel wrecked. Home and then off to the vet with Murph, he truly hates the vet and won't let him anywhere near him. Get given antibiotics and steroids and back again in 10 days to see if any improvement and if not it's back under the knife for him.  

Walk into Whitley and I'm feeling a bit shitty and Gail convinces me I need alcohol and chocolate, she's right as always and I buy some brownies and we go to the pub. She also tells me I need to calm down because I have a habit of catastrophising everything and Murphy will be fine and my leg will be fine, I want to tell her she's wrong but if I do she might leave me and then I'll have to get divorced and live on a park bench somewhere and die a lonely death with only my trainers for company.

Maybe she has a point.

Then home for a bath with lots of epsom salts and I'll probably fall asleep in there, I love sleeping in the bath. Sometimes I forget I'm in there and wake up and scare the shit out of myself, that's always fun.

Tonight I'm drinking wine and then falling asleep on the chair with Murphy.

Tomorrow is rest day or maybe easy miles if I feel like them.

Oh and I almost forgot, my knee and shin felt fine on the run. One positive in an otherwise shitty week.

Want to read all about my London adventure in 2023.

It's mostly about Ben, my sausage dog nemesis and wine.

LONDON CALLING