Cav's Place

Since the placeholder for the post about the half marathon only grew from one to two paragraphs since I put it up a week ago, posting what’s basically yet another placeholder really is a new low, and the odds of finishing both next week seem slim to none, seeing as I want to rest for this year’s Dream Trek Summer Edition and watch some matches, and I should also go to the dentist, to replace the filling that fell out in the early hours of Monday, while eating dinner, and which I’m pretty sure is the one which had also fallen out in May of last year and was replaced on the 15th of that month, so it barely lasted a year. But this is all I can do at the moment, since all I have so far about the actual runs are a few quick notes, and the same’s true when it comes to the other odds and ends, so the initial form of this post just included this paragraph and the first two that follow it, though I made a first edit and added one more paragraph after midnight. However, after writing nothing else until then, in the early hours of Friday I decided to only cover the first run of the series in this post, changing the title to reflect that at that point and adding the two paragraphs about the issues in the afternoon.

With the plan for June 12 being to start the final part of my preparation for this year’s Dream Trek, so two runs in one day, the previous day I meant to mostly rest, but between the occasional noises from above and my parents getting back, mother being here and having gone to the hospital in the morning, when I woke up after what were at best four hours of sleep, I knew that getting right back in bed would be pointless, so I stayed up for a couple more hours, then did get some more sleep, two hours or so, but mother once again cleaning and breaking things that were just hanging on ensured that I couldn’t get back in bed yet again in the evening, as I had initially planned, and the fact that she moved and changed things really messed me up, I was just whimpering when I looked around, and I couldn’t even take a crap, putting it off until after midnight and then just wasting time on the toilet when I did go, nothing coming out even though I had felt a fair bit there all day. And at night I ended up eating dinner, with peanut butter on all of the bread, between 3:25 AM and 4:10 AM.
At least I could sleep quite well, at least until the second time I got up, just after 12:40 PM, when I went to pee again and then took a while to get back to sleep, since my parents were up and making various small noises. And then I was woken up once more by some noise they made, but I got back to sleep yet again and slept until the alarm rang, at 2 PM, after which I helped them make sure that they weren’t forgetting anything and put what they were taking into bags, since mother was going to the hospital for the treatment that afternoon and then back to grandmother, and I also washed some things in the kitchen, so it took a while before I started getting ready. But I eventually ate a huge and tasty apple which had been brought by dad, and while I’m not sure what kind it was, I’m thinking that it might have been Jonaprince, since it seemed redder and I’d say that it also tasted better than Jonagold. Either way, I also mixed the cereals, the baked almonds with Himalayan salt, and the last of the raisins in dark chocolate, into a bio (organic) yogurt and ate that as well. And after going to the toilet I also ate three of those wheat things, adding honey between them, and went out at 5:30 PM, wearing the full running gear and with some things, including the large expired protein bar that I still had, in the pocket of my tights and the protein shake that was in the race kit for the half marathon in the running belt, since I took that as well. The reported temperature was 26-27°C, and while I couldn’t check after that, the forecast stated that it should have held pretty steady over the course of the first run.
The time was 1:17:51, with sector times of 4:20, 5:02, 5:51, 4:30, 4:59, 5:55, 4:35, 5:09, 6:01, 4:38, 5:16, 6:06, 4:36, 5:09 and 5:44, making for lap times of 15:13, 15:24, 15:45, 16:00 and 15:29. I initially only aimed to stay under 1:20 and controlled my pace quite a lot on the first sector, so that time was better than I expected, and sector two probably surprised me even more, which made me actually mean to push, aiming to finish the lap in less than 15:20, which I managed by a safe margin. That made me want to see whether I could keep the average below 15:20 over the first two laps, which I also managed, sector two of lap two being particularly good. So, after lap two I started wondering whether I could finally squeeze under 1:18 once again, and while sector one of lap three wasn’t exactly a good sign and going over six minutes on sector three of lap three was even more concerning, the thought was still crossing my mind at the end of the lap. That changed after I went over what would be the sector targets for a 16-minute lap on the first two sectors of lap four, so I was just hoping to push the moment when I’ll fall behind the target times to lap five. And I did, though I was frustrated when I saw that I covered lap four in exactly 16 minutes, so I hadn’t stayed under that time on each lap, especially since slamming into a guy on sector three had quite clearly made the difference. But I still had one second to spare, at least compared to the 15:36 that’s the target lap time for 1:18, and I didn’t want the failure to be for lack of trying, so I pushed and, even if sector one of lap five was several seconds off the required pace and I lost a couple more seconds on sector two, I really gave everything on sector three, managed a great time, and made it by a very safe margin, making this the first time I got under 1:18 since October.
I briefly stopped on the first sector’s long straight because, just as I was catching up to a family, the mother stepped aside and the kid, on a tricycle, went towards her, cutting across the lane and getting right in my way. And on lap two, at the end of that same straight, that same family caused me to hesitate, the kid seeming about to cut me off yet again. And I actually saw them in that area on the following laps as well, but the parents were sitting on a bench and the kid was in front of them, not cutting across the path anymore. But now that I think of it, I wonder if the family who cut across the path just as I was finishing the run was the same one, since that time around it was the father who was cutting me off, the kid being behind him and the mother still on the other side, and I was pushing as hard as possible and didn’t get a good look, just shouting at them and going on the right, hoping, and just managing, to get past them before getting cut off, so I finished on that side even though I normally stay on the left.
On the other hand, those warnings from my right knee only appeared on sector one of lap four, and more parts of my legs joined in on sector three of that lap… When I also slammed into a guy. A cyclist was coming from the opposite direction and the two of us ended up doing the silly dance from quite a distance, with that guy caught between us and obviously focusing on the cyclist, who must have seemed to be weaving erratically from his perspective, so he was understandably startled when he finally heard me right behind him, freezing in a pretty amusing position, with his arms and legs sort of twisted around, as if trying to go in both directions at once, and apologizing in a high-pitched voice. I really don’t know how the cyclist managed to avoid him, but the fact that we didn’t all end up in a tangle obviously means that he did, yet I had no idea which way to go and no time to stop, and that caused me to lose that time that meant that I couldn’t cover all laps in less than 16 minutes. Either way, a roadblock made me go off the path on the long straight of sector one of lap five, but that was behind the stage, so I stayed on a paved area, while on the following sector’s long straight I just managed to avoid a crash that could have been really bad, since I was about to get back on the lane after going around other people just when a guy in a competition wheelchair appeared from behind others. And I think it was on that same sector when it briefly felt that my legs were burning, though the feeling passed.