Cav's Place

I did manage to write the post about the previous two runs last evening, even though I initially posted it with a rough version of its last part, about the rest of August 19, to be able to post all of it before disconnecting, after dad got back, and then I edited that part quite heavily after getting back on-line, at night, but this post, about the long practice run, is initially little more than a placeholder, since I also went out this evening and before midnight I only managed to get as far as the paragraph about the lost time, mainly because of drinking and eating. And it’s another hard post to write anyway, so I posted what I initially did in order to force myself to finish writing it over the coming days. And at least I did manage to edit it in order to add the rest of it Friday evening.

On the evening of August 27, I got back in bed for some two hours, but I was getting up to pee every half an hour even though I hadn’t eaten watermelon that day and hadn’t even drunk all of the tea before then, and I only caught one brief nap before getting up the first time. So I guess that I just rested a little more, before eventually shaving, with cold water, taking out all of my bread from the freezer in order to see just what I still had, keeping one of the two pieces of the best kind for that evening and then putting everything else back, and working on the salad, once again ending up being far too slow and eating dinner, with peanut butter on all of the bread, between 3:25 AM and 3:55 AM. But at least I also made a vitamin tea while I was still in the kitchen, which I poured into two reusable bottles after getting up, which was just a few minutes before 4 PM, so it’s a good thing that I had decided to set the alarm to ring at 4 PM instead of 3:30 PM, so I could turn it off after getting up instead of getting woken up by it earlier. Then again, I might have already been awake at 3:30 PM, since I stayed in bed for a while longer before getting up.
Either way, after pouring that tea into the bottles and seeing that it didn’t completely fill the second one, I made the regular tea as well, set aside the second shot and the second bar taken after the Dream Trek, along with the liquid magnesium that was probably from the race kit for this year’s half marathon, so just that second bar was still valid, and ate the Gala apple and the really nice yogurt, with cereals, baked almonds with Himalayan salt and raisins in dark chocolate mixed in, though I didn’t realize that the yogurt had a second protective cover, which had apparently fallen into it, so I put everything on top of it and then had to dig it out, therefore being unable to have a look at the top of the yogurt to see whether any mold started to form or whether anything else seemed off, since it was still valid but I had bought it quite some time before. But it tasted fine, so I ate it, and after going to the toilet I also ate two nicer, but also expired, biscuits, with added honey, took some other supplement, which I had tried two days earlier, since it was too early to start taking the regular ones, and one of those pills against gas, drank a Smecta with some of the new tea, filled the space left in the second bottle with it, and left at 6:50 PM, taking the two bottles and wearing the full running gear, one armband and the running belt, with just the shot in it, since I was mainly taking it in order to put a bottle in there after I’ll empty it, while the bar, the liquid magnesium, the napkins and the slip of paper with the emergency information were in the pocket of my tights. The reported temperature was 28°C, dropping just a little while I ran, since it was 26°C at 11 PM, so it may be said that it pretty much held steady at about 27°C. Since I started before sunset and finished hours after it, that was weird, but that’s what the weather stations reported…
The time was 3:25:45, with lap times of 16:28, 16:53, 17:05, 17:41, 17:54, 19:26, 18:19, 19:07, 20:48, 20:42 and 21:22. So I need to get below 3:10 in order to have any realistic chance of squeezing under four hours at the marathon, have a personal best of 3:18:07 and a second best of 3:23:09, but only managed to be a little faster than the first time I covered this distance, making this only the third out of the four times that count, leaving aside the terrible ones from 2020 and 2023. And squeezing under 3:10 would mean an average lap time of 17:16, so I only covered the first three laps in less than that and after five laps I was about to go over that average, which obviously happened seconds later, considering all of the time lost at the start of lap six. On the other hand, that personal best meant an average lap time that was less than a second over 18 minutes, so I was still over one minute ahead after eight laps, but by that point I already knew that aiming to beat that time was a lost cause, and not just because I lost more than that difference at the start of lap nine, but because I knew that I had no chance of getting anywhere near the times that I managed on the last three laps back then. However, at that point I was still hoping for the second best time, only realizing towards the end of lap ten that I had no chance of managing that either, and over the course of the last lap even being somewhat concerned that I might even fail to beat that first run’s time, since I only remembered that it was 3:26, not the seconds as well, so I had to stay under 3:26 to be certain and I was really struggling… And the fact that I did stay under 3:26 may mean that this wasn’t a complete embarrassment, but it’s clearly a bad time, and a disheartening one…
Since I mentioned the lost time, when I drank at the start of lap four I lost less than 30 seconds, but let’s say that I lost about 30 seconds that lap, since I later realized that I had forgotten the time that I saw at that point and it was too dark to see it properly while still running, and in fact I ended up losing several seconds because of that, since my eyes just wouldn’t focus. Then I lost about a minute at the start of lap five, when I ate that bar, and some two minutes at the start of lap six, most of it because I struggled to close the zipper of the running belt after emptying one bottle of tea and putting it in there. Since I neither ate nor drank at the start of lap seven, I just lost a few seconds, in order to see the time properly, while at the start of laps eight and ten I drank again and lost some 30 seconds because of that. However, at the start of lap nine, when I pulled that shot and the liquid magnesium from the pocket of my tights and drank both of them, I once again lost some two minutes. On the other hand, I didn’t even stop to check the time at the start of lap 11.
Getting back to the beginning, it was clear that 3:10 was out of the question and any attempt would just result in exhausting myself too early, like in 2022, but I looked at the stopwatch a couple of times over the course of the first lap, eventually decided to try to cover it in just under 16:30, and did just that. And then I wanted to stay under 17 minutes on lap two as well, which I also managed without any problem. However, since I tried to pay close attention to how much effort I was making and avoided pushing in pretty much any way, I failed to do the same on lap three. But, despite the lost time, I stayed under 18 minutes not just on lap four, but on lap five as well, and while I did push on lap five in order to manage that and realizing that I had gone over that average lap time that was required for 3:10 at the start of lap six was slightly disheartening despite knowing that I shouldn’t even really think about that, at that point I was still thinking not only of a new personal best, but even of getting under 3:15, which was the best target that I realistically thought of at the beginning.
That didn’t last long, however, only managing to recover a small part of the time lost at the start of lap six despite pushing over the course of it making me realize that none of that was likely anymore, especially since I was starting to tire. And when I went well over 18 minutes on lap seven despite not drinking or eating and the actual running time for lap eight was worse, I realized that the best possible scenario was to average 20 minutes per lap over the last three laps, which would have at least led to a new second best time. So I settled for that, and while all of the time lost at the start of lap nine was a serious problem, the fact that the actual running time was similar to that from lap eight gave me some hope… But lap ten was hard, and when the time was similar to that from lap nine despite losing so much less, it finally became clear that I could only hope for a new third time, and the way I felt even put that in doubt, so I gave everything I had left over the course of the last lap, pushing even harder over the last few hundred meters.
To move on to the problems, there actually isn’t that much to say. I mean, there were some issues caused by people, but since speed wasn’t the primary goal, they didn’t matter that much, and the more significant ones only caused me to slow anyway, as I’m pretty sure that I never actually stopped because of that, and towards the end it was quite clear, the number of people dropping sharply. Of course, having to weave and go the long way around meant covering a longer distance and that definitely mattered, but I couldn’t say how much, and it’s possible that the running lane was the worse problem from that point of view, considering all of the damaged spots, including plenty that created a risk of tripping, and the fact that the long straight of sector two seemed to be the worst part of it, much of it being basically unusable, the risk of tripping approaching certainty, so I did my best to avoid all of those places, obviously even more so after dark.
As for physical issues, my right knee started giving some warnings from sector two of lap two, and by the end of lap three the right ankle and the left knee joined it, but I wouldn’t say that those issues became noticeably worse after that in themselves, and the only other specific physical problem appeared at the start of lap nine, when I noticed that something was wrong with my back after drinking that shot and the liquid magnesium. Actually, at first it felt like the problem was with my neck, but after a while it became quite clear that the feeling was reflected from my back, and it’s not just that I couldn’t snap it or otherwise correct it while I ran, but it actually took a couple of days before it seemed to fix itself. But, of course, the real problems came after hitting the wall, which actually happened relatively late. I mean, I already mentioned that it was on lap six when I started to feel somewhat tired, but I was quite all right until about halfway through lap eight, when my hands started going numb, and I was just about to complete sector two of lap nine when I noticed that the numbness was beginning to also affect my arms and my legs were getting heavy. That was still manageable until the end of that lap, but from the start of lap ten, maybe also because I slowed to a walk in order to finish the tea and then had to start running again, it was a struggle to keep putting one foot in front of the other, so the fact that I just kept running after that, not even stopping to have another good look at the time, likely made all the difference.
I really paid for that, however, and probably for those last few hundred meters in particular, since it was so hard to climb those stairs and then make my way back. I knew that I had to just keep walking, since it was probably the only thing that kept my muscles from seizing completely, so I didn’t even try to do any stretching exercises, but every step was just so hard, I had to keep pushing through the pain, often being unable to walk in a straight line, feeling like I was just about to collapse and hoping that my body would at least recover a little bit by the time I’ll get back here… And then I made the mistake of checking the nearby Mega Image, and as soon as I stepped in my legs did cramp, so I somehow stumbled to the bakery area and then placed one hand on a stack of packs of beer and the other on the glass from that area and tried to wait out the worst of it, after which I took out the sheets of paper where the ingredients for those products are listed, since they were all stacked together, and read some of them, ending up considering coming back to buy something. But I wanted to get back here by 11 PM, hoping to be able to see what the temperature had been at 10 PM, and when I realized that I only had a couple of minutes left I tried to shove those papers back in their place, then ended up leaving them on a shelf when I failed to do so and tried to rush back… Not that I could exactly rush anymore.
Well, I did manage to get back a little before 11 PM, but it was some seconds after that hour when I got to the computer and could check the weather report, and while that site is usually updated a couple of minutes after the hour, at that point I saw that the temperatures for 11 PM were already posted, so I couldn’t see what it had been at 10 PM… Not that it really mattered, considering how little the temperature seemed to have dropped even by 11 PM, so I shrugged that off, put watermelon in a plate and then, after changing my mind about returning to Mega Image, I just went to drop a bag of trash down the chute… Only realizing after I got back that I had forgotten to clean the litter box first. Either way, I then drank what little was left in the bottles and vials and ate watermelon, with some small doughnuts. I considered that I had eaten enough sweet things that day, so I didn’t want any other sweets and thought that those doughnuts were simple, only realizing after the first bite that they were sweetened after all, but I couldn’t exactly put them back at that point.
It was only after that when I finally did a few quick stretching exercises, but they didn’t help my neck, or my back, whatever it was. But then I somehow even managed to do the day’s squats before going to the bathroom, to use the toilet and shower, at 12:30 AM, the big problem being that the water was cold, so it wasn’t just that taking a bath was completely out of the question, but I was so weakened and when I dared to aim the shower at my torso and back it felt like being stabbed by icy daggers. But I eventually did manage to wash myself to some extent, being done a little before 1:20 AM. And then I started working on dinner, which included making pizza, and during that time I also ate the last box of expired walnuts with Himalayan salt, so I got almost 850 calories just from those, drank the rest of the tea and made another. I finally ate dinner between 4:45 AM and 6:05 AM, and I kept feeling so thirsty, so I then drank much, if not most, of the new tea as well, despite the fact that I felt just stuffed.

I got in bed at 6:35 AM, but it was pointless. I mean, I can’t sleep after such an effort anyway, and I was really stuffed, plus that dad got back soon after I got in bed and made some noise, having apparently brought some things and preparing what he needed in order to cook something after he’ll get up, and Liza kept meowing as well, knowing that he was going to keep feeding her if she did, and since I was still wasting time after he went to bed, it wasn’t even 7:25 AM when I got back on the computer, eventually drinking some more tea, peeing and getting back in bed at 8:30 AM… Only for some workers to start mowing the plants that are behind the building, as in actually in this little garden, not on the other side of the fence, moments later, so I got up again, took a few pictures and got back on the computer. When some cleaners also moved in to gather the mowed plants, I took a few more pictures, noticing that the guy who was mowing did at least leave some of the larger flowers, though only the obvious ones that were actually in flower, since he mowed just about everything else, and even a few of those that did have flowers, though that was likely by accident.
At least he was done rather quickly, at which point I peed again, just in case, and got back in bed, a few minutes after 9 AM… And not long after that might have been the only time when I managed to catch a nap, but even if I did, it was the briefest one and I was definitely awake again moments later and still felt so thirsty. And it also seemed to be awfully hot even though it couldn’t have really been that hot, and my back still didn’t allow me to get in the positions that I wanted to stay in, so a little before 10:30 AM I finished the tea, peed yet again, still just in case, and then tried to get back to sleep one more time… And I was still unsuccessful, so I eventually just gave up, getting up when it wasn’t even 12:10 PM. And while I crawled back in bed for close to an hour and a half in the afternoon, I dozed off just a little, likely falling asleep for mere minutes, though possibly doing so a few times. And at night I managed to finish eating dinner at 3:40 AM despite actually starting to eat at 3:05 AM, though I tried to “cheat” a little and take a first bite before 3 AM, to be able to say that I stuck to the schedule, but realized that I had done so seconds after 3 AM after all. And the light bulb from the kitchen was once again flickering badly. And I ended up getting in bed at 5:20 AM. And after getting up, so on August 30, I started taking the supplement for joints, having decided to take it for 45 days this time around.