Sunday, May 4, 2014

Bupa London 10,000 Week 6 / 9

One of those "niggling little problems" that I mentioned last week did in fact become a stopper: my cold developed into a full blown chest cold with a temperature as a bonus. I got so desperate, in fact, that I tried at my wife's suggestion some Oscilococcinum which, after reading its entry in Wikipedia, makes homeopathy seem quite mainstream and scientific. I was assured that it would make my symptoms improve more quickly than if I were not to have taken it, so I can't really say whether it worked or not. Either way, I spent the whole bank holiday weekend coughing and managing my temperature with paracetamol or ibuprofen. In fact, the only people in my family to escape illness have been my youngest son and my wife: even the dog was cough-barking and was put on antibiotics. Since I started running again, I have been much less susceptible to colds and so forth, so it has been a bit unlucky to have had this right on the heels of the cold I had just after the Half Marathon. (On the other hand, it could have come just before the race I am preparing for, so let's be happy for small mercies.)

Amazingly I was able to do a fairly tough workout on Thursday but that was possibly the straw to break the donkey's back as it was only a few hours after that, that my temperature started to climb. Still, I did manage to improve slightly on my previous week's effort and ran my 5 sets of 3 minutes at a slightly faster pace of 3:06 (19.4 kph). I'm gradually easing closer to the 20 kph mark! By Friday, it was clear that the best policy was not to train at all. The "neck test" says that if the symptoms are below the neck (that is to say, in the lungs) then training is a no-no.

I had planned to run a 10K race on Sunday but that was looking even more unlikely as the week wore on. I did, however, get my fantastic new treadmill (a Nordictrack T20.0) on Saturday. The delivery guys did an amazing job of extracting my old treadmill, which they were unable to completely disassemble as the bolts had rusted up so much (with my sweat). Running felt so easy on it. Too easy, in fact - so I calibrated it. It turns out that it has some fault as the speed sensor is very erratic. This was obvious when I pulled up the calibration screen - the "actual speed" was fluctuating all over the shop. Compared to the good old-fashioned technique of counting the number of times a mark on the belt goes by in a minute, the belt was sometimes as much as 3 kph too slow or 1 kph too fast. Hopefully it won't be too difficult to fix but I'm a bit concerned that it has to do with the dodgy wiring in my house which adds to excitement of loading the dish-washer by giving a mild electric shock if you happen to be barefoot, for example. As I have complained before on this blog, I've had electric shocks from various household appliances in all of the three houses I have lived in in Spain. While I may be unusual in that I go round in bare feet most of the time, I would have thought that earthing would be fairly standard in new houses by now.

So, if truth be told, I am a little frustrated right now. As my wife keeps telling me, its not a big deal - and she is right - but it is amazing how quickly you can lose perspective after just three days off training in a row!

Monday: -
Tuesday: 5 x (3' @ 3:06, 3' @ 6:00)
Wednesday: 40' @ 4:00
Thursday: 1K+3K+2K+3K+1K @ 3:25 w/ 1' jog
Friday: nuthin'
Saturday: zilch
Sunday: nada

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