No sleep ’til Cumbernauld

I over exerted myself this week. Going to the well over and over again. It started off really well, better than expected, but by the end I was on fumes and the initial energy was gone and no matter how hard I pushed the distances were reducing.

Of course, I am talking about my trip to TopGolf with the team in Salt Lake City on Wednesday evening, where I started swinging as if I was in my twenties again. Next morning my body reminded me that I was not, and not by a long way. What good fun it was though.

When it comes to my running it was a really strong week of training. I had a 7 day / 100 mile stretch, with some high quality work in there and the bulk of it at over 4,500 feet above sea level.

I was in Utah for work from Sunday to Friday. When I am out there with work it is generally long days. Starting on average at 4:20am each day for runs, with a couple before 4am, it meant some compromise on sleep. Once you add in post-work events and catch-ups they were long days. I only had one sleep over 5 hours in 8 days.

Despite this I felt really good this week. A particularly enjoyable run was the long one on Thursday. Running from downtown SLC to the eBay office in Draper. It looks pretty cool on the map and involves following South State Street from 185 to 11,400. At this time of the morning it is so quiet. Nary a car on the road.

What was interesting was that this was 5 days after landing and it felt like a cruise after being at the altitude for a few days. I’d love to see what 3-4 weeks of training here would do.

But… and there’s always a but, I came back to earth on Sunday. I travelled home Friday into Saturday. I cannot sleep on the plane, which meant I was awake barring a 30 min nap, for almost 36 hours. And I had a decent sleep Saturday into Sunday at home. When I woke on Sunday morning I was jaded. The kinda feeling you have when listening to a Keir Starmer speech.

The week had caught up with me. I had a place in the Cumbernauld 10k. I wasn’t going to go but as it is just 1 mile away from home I decided to pop along. Despite forgetting my number and having to get a replacement, I took to the start line with zero expectations. A mile in I was feeling burst. Not only was the long day the day before catching up with me, so was the long week. It was a great reminder of the importance of balance.

At around 4 miles in I decided discretion was the better part of valour. I was in about 6th place. I was slowing badly and at this stage I was running the risk of fatigue or injury, and I’d had a really good week. I would have had a decent time but in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t that important.

As the song goes, you gotta know when to hold ’em. Etc, and so on.

A week at home beckons. That means a few Taks a-coming before another week away with work, but one closer to home. I have no transatlantic travel planned before my race at the end of November, and this is good news. I can focus on all the areas I have mentioned before, and god, I have to say there is no bed like your own bed!