January 27, 2008 at 10:48 pm · Filed under Running
I wasn’t on top form when my alarm went off on Saturday morning but by lunchtime I was beginning to contemplate an intermediate distance run along the river. By 3 in the afternoon as I started seeing signs of everyone else’s stronger commitment, I felt it was time to take the Garmin out for some fresh air.
I gave blood on Thursday evening and was intrigued to see what affect it would have on my running. I always feel good after blood doning but I suppose it’s going to impair my oxygen carrying ability for a while and that run was awful!
Awful I say.
My shins were screaming all the way and at the 3k mark I had to bail out. My stomach was in a terrible bad way as well and I just had to crawl back home to my bathroom. Now I’m sure my stomach issue probably had a lot to do with the previous evenings hydration choices but the shin pains could be related to the blood donation.
I had a hang dog attitude for the rest of the day, I hate bailing on runs. I’ve just checked it out though and apparently it take 4 weeks to replace all the red blood cells and eight weeks to restore the iron lost after donating so maybe I could cut myself some slack.
This morning I intended to make amends but I started the day playing with a little chum. After a couple of hours of the exciting door pushing game, he looked like this. I would have liked to look like that but had to go out and run around the hilliest park in the universe.
Darn half-marathon training.
I left the hypnosis tapes at home but unfortunately I messed up with my recording of the Archers and had to fall back on some emergency running motivation.
Feel free to have the soundtrack running in the background - go on you’ll love it!
It’s got quite a catchy beat and it nicely matched the rattling coming from my rucksac. For some reason I have taken to running with a book and a puncture repair kit in my bag and the overall effect left me convinced that I had a bunch of marines running behind me.
44 tracks of that ilk drove me absolutely nuts but I couldn’t really moan too much about my poorly shins with the drill instructor threatening to call me a pussy if I dropped the pace. If I’d been running with a rifle though I’d probably have blasted the iPod. New inspiration required for next week.
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Tags: blood doning, Garmin, hypnosis, Richmond Park
January 20, 2008 at 5:10 pm · Filed under Running
I bought a pack of jelly tots to act as a replacement for those noxious gels on todays long run. Unfortunately I finished the pack before I even left the flat. As punishment I loaded Paul McKenna’s “I Can Make You Thin” hypnotic track onto the iPod and set off.
So I’m kitted up, eager to go and in fact I have already assumed the running pose and motion, when Paul kicks in and starts telling me to breathe sloooooowly, innnnnnn annnnd ooooouuuutttttttt - for the count of 6 each way. Tying up my shoelaces causes me to hyperventilate, running in Richmond Park has me breathing so loudly and rapidly that complete strangers start handing me paper bags to breath in. I’m on about 60 breaths a second and Paul hasn’t even finished his first inhalation. I resist Paul’s instructions for fear of my brain cells switching down one by one til I end in an unconscious heap.
This guy really is going to have his work cut out with me. I can barely hear him over the gale force 5 swirling in the park but when he speaks up I get the impression I have Darth Vader growling from one ear to another. I tune in and catch him telling my left ear that I’m a super svelte racing whippet who only eats good foods and never ever eats her recovery snacks before she has done anything to recover from. Then he switches to the other ear and tells me about hunger and how good it is.
I know enough about this hypnosis stuff to realise he’s not just trying to mess with my head but he is trying to mess with a particular side of my head. Trouble is, I never check which speaker is meant for which ear when I put my headphones on. What happens if he’s putting my left brain into a right brain trance? Oh god, I could finish this run convinced that I am huge sugar monster.
Earphones whipped out and re-assembled, I continue with the run. And its a tough run. Why am I doing my long runs in the hilliest park in the metropolis when I live slap bang on the banks of a flat river route?
The park is full again, I’m an hour later than last week and my first impression is that there are more walkers than runners at this relaxed hour. Then I get caught in a stampede of crazed runners one of whom tries to scare me half to death with a new years sweaty greeting, they may be friendly but they are ridiculously fast. I would bet that none of them were running round in a hypnotic trance but there must be more to it than that. I’m going to go back to Archers next week. See if I can pull a bit more pace out of the hat then.
13.32 km 1:48:51
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Tags: hypnosis, Paul McKenna, Richmond Park
