Sixteen kilometres!! I can’t believe it, on Sunday I ran 16k! Now it didn’t happen the way I’d planned but the main thing is it happened…
My brother was home for the weekend so the plan was to reach 15k together on Friday, I was all set, drank plenty of water the day before, got a decent night’s sleep, had a good breakfast that morning and we set off.
I was feeling pretty confident as I’d been improving my pace over the last while and had been running 10k without too much of a struggle. I was feeling OK by 9k and had kept a good pace up but then it hit me, a cramp in my left side, I told Rob and he advised me to keep running through it which I tried, but after 30seconds it had moved across my whole chest and I just had to stop as the pain was unbearable.
I walked for about 500m and tried running again but it was no use, I was done for the day. I was beyond disappointed. I had been so excited and so sure I was ready to get to 15k that having to give up before I even hit 10k was devastating! Rob ran on and managed 15k which was brilliant and at least one of us reached our goal!
The whole cramp thing really knocked my confidence, it came out of nowhere and there was nothing I could do about it which does worry me for half marathon day, but hopefully by then I will have figured out what causes it and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
So I got back out running Sunday, planning 5/6k but secretly hoping I could do more, it was a gorgeous day for it, the sun was shining and it was dry. Before I knew it I had reached 10k and was feeling reasonably good so I thought I might as well take advantage of this good run and keep on going till my body tells me to stop! So I kept going and reached 16k for the first time ever, I aimed for 16k as I plan on doing the Edenderry 10mile at the end of this month and really wanted to know I could manage that distance before entering the race.
I was absolutely ecstatic after and a little sore but it was totally worth the pain!
Bring on the half marathon!
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