Sometimes it just doesn’t go for you. Today was one of those days.
My training plan called for an ‘easy’ parkrun so, by rights, I shouldn’t really have been going hard anyway. As it turned out I didn’t but not through choice.
I wasn’t sure whether to go to my local event, Ecos, or nearby Antrim but a quick chat with Iverene meant that I was off up the road to Antrim for the third time.
I had high hopes of putting in a decent time. I’d been running well lately, and doing ok over the first 5k of longer races so I reckoned the course, which I like, could well lend itself to perhaps a new pb. Not that I expected one but I was tempted to give it a go.
And I did indeed start well. The first km came in at 6:19 which was faster than normal, but I felt relatively ok. Perhaps this was going to be good.
Unfortunately not. Shortly after that opening kilometre ticked past I began to sense what felt like pins and needles in my right foot. I slowed down to see if that would ease it, and it did for a little while.
However, my foot then went cold/numb and I knew this wasn’t good. Soon after that the tingling returned, and this process more or less repeated itself for the rest of the morning.
I was running ok, but it was getting increasingly uncomfortable and, to be honest, painful – when my foot didn’t feel numb that is.
My running style also became quite cumbersome which had the result of causing some aches and pains elsewhere in my legs, both of them.
This was a time for damage limitation. I walked for a few seconds every couple of minutes or so – I don’t like doing this but I didn’t want to cause injury. I even stopped at the bridge on the second lap of the course to chat briefly with the marshal on duty. I NEVER do this, but it was an indication of how much discomfort I was in by now.
Despite all this, my time (35:58) wasn’t awful. It wasn’t great compared to what I’ve been doing recently but it wasn’t the disaster it could have been. I was ticking over at a reasonable pace when I was running but even with the walking and the stopping I still came in at well under 12 minutes per mile.
Hopefully my pins and needles issue was nothing more than a trapped nerve when I was lacing up my trainers. I suppose I’ll find out tomorrow when I go on my long slow run.
HUFF, PUFF AND SHUFFLE 