Worst long run ever.

Oh my lordy this morning was a serious struggle. I was chuckling to myself as I trotted along later in the piece thinking, "This is definitely the worst long run ever". I needed to fit in a long run which I missed on the weekend because of the Cronulla triathlon so I thought I'd get up early and do it Wednesday instead.

It started at 4.30am when the alarm went and I started getting ready. The idea was to run from 4:45am - 7:45am and try to cover about 30km at a pace under 5min/km pace. I felt pretty knackered when I got up, but you'd expect that at 4:30am! My legs were feeling sore and in the first few minutes I found it difficult to keep up a pace anywhere near 5 min/kms. That often happens at the start of runs and I figured once I warmed up I'd be fine.

No such luck. I plodded along, unable to increase my heartrate over 120 and unable to make my legs go any faster that 5:30min/km pace even at their best. The whole time I just felt uncomfortable. Then I tripped on something and went flying face first, skidding on my hands and knees on the concrete pavement. About 5 minutes later after picking myself up and carrying on, I suddenly felt like my bowels would explode if I didn't find a toilet NOW. Unfortuantely the nearest toilet was a 5 minute run away, normally not a problem, but I literally could not run. Even a fast walk caused immense gastro-intestinal distress so I had to hobble along slowly with my butt-cheeks tightly clenched until I finally reached the public toilets.

The 15 minute walk sort of took the wind out of my sails as I gamely struggled to continue the run but couldn't for the life of me produce any pace. I ended up doing about 2 hours (plus another 20 minutes to work) of plodding along at average HR of 120 anbd average pace of 6:30min/km. Rubbish. I was trying to think why but I can't work it out, maybe my body still needs some recovery after the Cronulla triathlon? Bah.