Hot stuff!

It has been two weeks since my last confession...well, my blog post anyway. Returning to work after much time off in the (not) summer was good because I got to spend an afternoon and evening at a decent, non-nobby conference and with a friend and colleague for food and catch-up, but it also reminded me that my contract for this post ends in a year. It makes me review the What next? Probably more research but this time, I will push for sticking with 0.6 FTE rather than 0.8 FTE. We can afford to do it, and I need to increase my non-work time in my life and play more.

Anyway, onto training this last fortnight! Well, this is still my first entire block of returning to run training, and it is interesting to see how much I had lost (temporarily) by not progressively training. I have just completed two weeks of running training, and last Saturday, I ran a new, longer route. Although only 24 km, it left me knackered and calling for a lift home rather than shuffling the last boring road 5 km back. I was only scheduled for 21 km anyway, so was fine on the distance front, but my goodness, I was slow, and I got tired! Shocking!! For context, when I finished the Classic Quarter in 2021, having run 44 miles, I was no more tired than I was last Saturday! If you don't use it, you sure as heck lose it.

This week again, the same kind of distance on the long run at 22 km and for sure some tiredness but definitely a degree of progress. Slightly less tired, slightly less hungry afterwards, slightly better personal admin, and in overall better shape. It is shades of grey at this point because I haven't gone springing back into 40+ milers as cocky and confident as a teenage boy but paying close attention, there is progress there. This week I also completed my third strength training session, which was volume, trap-bar deadlifts on Friday, so I already had a degree of light-touch fatigue in my legs before I started running, helping me build fatigue resistance!

If I sit and pontificate about this stuff, I would say that I am feeling pretty humbled by having to adjust my self-image. Em Gen 1 was the bombproof, endurance-animal model, Em Gen 2.0 is the mere human model. I have to plan my training time for roughly 50% longer than I used to for a given distance, and I currently feel the training afterwards...I need a little time to gather myself when I come home. I have been here before after time off (following 20 months off for dental reconstruction), and I know that this is temporary. I also know that at some random point in the future, I will notice my times coming down, or that a certain run feels super easy or that I've run for 4 hours, come in, changed and got on with the day without needing to re-group, but for now, I need to plan for longer and gentler mileage, invest in recovery, and just keep turning up.

The weather has finally been stunning, we have had 30-odd degree heat and high levels of humidity, and setting out for each run has seen my clothing drenched within minutes, and I am breathing in every last moment of this warmth and sun. The darkness is coming in earlier and leaving later in the mornings, and the season is maturing into deep, late, sun-baked summer and preparing for the autumn. The heat makes it a little harder to run, but that just means planning for it and running gently out there, making the most of every moment of this because autumn will soon be here, the days will be shorter, and someone somewhere will be moaning that it is cold(er)...perhaps that someone will be me!

NB: Training Tip (for want of a better description!) I always check myself for ticks and get Alli to check the back of me, especially in the warmer months. Last Saturday, I brought two tick passengers home. Although we removed them within a few hours, the one on my rib cage developed a thumb-sized pink ring around it which I monitored for 48 hours before calling it in with the GP. I have never had any kind of reaction to a tick before, so that was worth noting. It was super efficient talking to the GP, and we agreed that prophylactic antibiotics were a good plan, so I am now a few days into a 3-week Doxycycline course. Check your body after a run, and if a tick bite looks iffy, call the GP; they are geared up to respond instantly and effectively to this. It just isn't worth risking developing Lyme disease.