Sunday, January 24, 2010

Pacesetters 30k (a.k.a. 30Hills)

(Photos courtesy of Jason Lee)

I felt the chest infection coming on early Friday morning during the swim. Tried to take everything easy as soon as I felt it. Friday night turbo - easy. PD long ride on Saturday (relatively) easy (actually I was buggered anyway), brick run after long ride was supposed to be an interval run so to take the edge of that I just did a brisk run rather then the intervals.

Sunday morning came around and it was the annual New Balance Pacesetters 30k. I normally run 32k Sunday mornings so nothing of any great consequence except it was a "race" and as usual it was an insanely hilly course.

With the chest infection I decided to be conservative and literally started at the back at an easy pace with Sam. I had hoped to use this run as a time trial to measure my level of fitness & training against the same point in time last year in readiness for IMMY. Anyway it seemed to make sense to me but was clearly off the cards under the circumstances of contracting the lung infection.

Sam and I were running at a descent pace but still able to chat which made the run extremely pleasant. That was until he had to peel off for a loo break. I picked up the pace fractionally until I got to the 13k mark at which point I notched it up to the next level. The lungs had opened up and I wasn't taxing my chesty cough in any way nor struggling for breath.

I was pretty focused although running with Sam was definitely more fun as the k's had passed by without notice, now I was counting them off one by one. However, having started at a conservative pace I was now passing people at a pretty rapid rate of knots which is always good for the motivation.

With 12k to go I notched it up one final time and was steaming along at probably 4:30mins per k pace. This was still well within my limits and still not causing any undue discomfort to my lungs. The last 3k of this race are "funny", you run right past the finish line and then back to one of the early series of hills and do them again! Nice! Actually I'd anticipated this so it wasn't a problem and the finish soon came.

2hrs26 and some lose change was my time. I was pretty stoked with that as I could have gone much faster had I not been ill and it was only 1 minute slower than last year so a good result after all.

The downside is that the chest infection is still with me, I have taken Monday and Tuesday off work, not because I don't feel well but because I want to avoid air-conditioning like the plague as that will really make things worse. I tried swimming on Monday morning but stopped half way through the warm up and I have done no training since - again not because I can't or don't want to but because....(you won't hear me say this often)...because I'm being sensible!!!! Shock, Horror...did I just say that?

Having had pneumonia twice and both times I tried to train through it (prior to knowing what it was I hasten to add) I know that the sensible path is also the one that will lead me to the least amount of lost training time and also will minimise the amount of repair my lungs will need to go through before they get back to 100%.

I have an appointment at the hospital tomorrow so they'll take some tests and no doubt ply me with antibionics and then we'll see.

Postscript - Yes I know that if I'd been really sensible I'd have stopped exercising on Friday morning as soon as I had the first hint of a problem, but hey, this is me you're talking about...stopping now is a huge leap forward in the sensible stakes.

Post Postscript (1 week later) - I ended up having the phlegm tested in the lab, chest X-rayed and a course of hefty antibiotics prescribed. No going to work for the week, no aircon and no exercise. The doc reluctantly agreed that I could start exercising again on Saturday but nothing too taxing - I read that as an easyish 186k ride to PD and no brick run afterwards. I survived that and then a 32k run Sunday morning but boy, the antibiotics don't half drain you - I felt like a beginner again. I'll swim Monday morning and see how the land lies and take it all from there.

3 comments:

Ben said...

All I can suggest is to take it easy until it clears. You can maintain your fitness on 3-4 sessions per week. You won't be building but perhaps this is a good thing. Let all that work catch up to you.

Focus on China now?

Bryan said...

Haha. I love the word Sensible. I've got use that one day.

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