It Wasn't Good.

I survived my second 37k run on Saturday.

Word selection is very important in that sentence. I chose 'survived' deliberately because it really wasn't a great run. Actually that's not totally true - the first 30k were fine. It's the last 7 (which was closer to 8) that scared me. They weren't good.

ITBFS. No Mum, that's not secret swearing - although it can bring on actual verbal swearing. Iliotibial band friction syndrome. I've had it before. When I was training for my first half marathon. I felt the first niggles at around the 30k mark. That tightening on the outside of my left knee. The twinges of pain. It had me out of action for a couple of weeks the first time and I do not have a couple of weeks at this stage of training.

Stupidly though, I didn't cut the run short. I could have. I could have turned off a few kilometres before the end and maybe cut the run down to 33k. 25 minutes or so less pain. But in my head I'd woken up that morning to run 37k and I couldn't fathom running less than that.

Then I spent the rest of the day stretching and rolling and sitting on a tennis ball. They helped a little but it wasn't until I'd really tortured myself with a dumbbell that I got real relief. There's nothing quite like sitting on an unforgiving piece of metal to make sore, tight muscles bend into submission. It's exquisitely painful but oh, so effective.

I managed to get through the speed session this morning. I spent the whole time thinking about my ITB. Wondering if it was tightening up. Wondering if the pain was going to return. Wondering whether I'd be able to do my other scheduled sessions for this week. Wondering about next Saturday's last 37k run. But it seemed to hold its own. No tightening. No pain. Tentative hope that it was just an aberration.

Tomorrow I'll test it out on a 16k tempo-ish run. Then I head to the physio so he can torture me a little bit more.

I must be a masochist. All of this pain and discomfort so I can run 42.2k - which is really just an exaggeration of the pain and discomfort that I'm already feeling. Luckily I hang out with people who think that this is all quite normal or else I'd think I was crazy. Or crazier that I already know I am.

In other news. One of my younger sisters turns 50 today. Happy Birthday Fiona!

It was all well and good accepting turning 50 myself but having your younger siblings do it is a bit of a reality check. I'm not sure how it's going to be when my youngest one gets there. But that's not for another 6 years so I'll deal with it then.

I'm really pleased with how her cake turned out apart from one very small detail. I learnt that Persian fairy floss is best added to the cake just before it's served. It melted away overnight.

And because I didn't want the Queen to feel like she'd been left out, I made her a cake too.  I know it wasn't actually her birthday yesterday but if that's when we get the day off to celebrate then that's when she gets her cake.

She hasn't turned up for her slice yet. Let's hope she comes soon or there won't be any left.