Pressure Relief

After a lovely run 6km on the beach bare foot on Saturday (Grau-du-Roi). Sunday saw me clutching my abdomen. By 10:30 I thought I had for the first time ever a bad case of constipation.

It turned out that by Sunday evening I was in the hospital with a case of Diverticulitis. After a CT scan, bloods and urine tests it was after midnight before getting home.

There was some release of pressure Monday, but now the only running I am doing is to the toilette.

Choices choices

I had the choice yesterday, Cycle, run or bath. I hummed around the subject. Riding was the best decision based on the Morzine Monster coming up, but running is more pleasurable (to me, and I did not have more than an hour).... The bath nearly won from lethergy.

Eventually forced myself out on the bike for half an hour. At the top of Mont Verdun, I had another choice, go over the back side down to Poleymieux or home (short of time).

Luckily I chose the easy option. On the first bend down the hill I nearly came off.... Looked down at the front tire and it was about flat. I was able to pump it up enough to cruise down the hill and limp back home.

Windy and hot

I found yesterdays small run supper hard. It was hot > 32 degrees and very windy.

I was running my short course to strengthen the leg which was feeling a bit fragile still. This goes through woodland, open fields and some market gardens. And although hard, I had some sensations that where unusual that kept my mind busy.

At the start I realized it was going to be windy when my cap blew off. Soon afterwards in the woods there was a huge cracking sound. I looked in the direction of the noise and there was a huge branch falling off a tree. From then on I made sure I was listening to sounds around me, not wanting half a tree to fall on my head.

During the second to last hill climb, there was a sudden gust that must have gone through a plastic greenhouse as I had such a sense of strawberries assaulting my nose, I could have sworn I had eaten some.

Finally, while running between two fields of wheat, the noise of  ears of wheat rubbing together was deafening (OK, so that is an exaggeration  but very load all the same)

Running 'can slow ageing process'

Running on a regular basis can slow the effects of ageing, a study by US researchers shows.

Elderly joggers were half as likely to die prematurely from conditions like cancer than non-runners.

Nothing else to add - Read the article below

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7554293.stm

Software update from Garmin

My average cadence is now greater than the Maximum Cadence..... Go figure!

Nice update, thanks Garmin. Everything gets better!

Cross du Mont Blanc

The Cross turned out to be as hard as I thought it was going to be. Asked afterwards, "was it as hard as the Beaujolais Marathon" my initial response was yes. But in retrospect, maybe it is was not. The next day I had no exhaustion and stiffness that I experienced from the Marathon.

At the start it was announced that there where 1500 (2000 entrants) runners taking part, and that there was quite a tough maximum time allowed. There was only 1300 finishers. About 50 dropped out during the run (can tell from the splits) so not sure what happened to the other 150. - dropped out before the first split at 12k?

At about kilometer 15, I found myself absolutely alone, I could see nobody in front and could hear nothing from behind. Wow, what  great feeling that was. It was only for about 5 minutes, but it crossed my mind that with all those people running we must have been very well spread out.

This gives an idea what it was like at 15km

Some time later I indicated to a guy behind me that I would make room for him to pass, he replied he was not concerned about passing, he had been following me for 10km and found my pace perfect for him.... Unfortunately  this was just before the last 1km, by the time I had turned round to see who it was he had merged with the end crowd. And believe me it was a crowd at the finish. The last 1km took me about 15 minutes!

Looking back at the Marathon video, I am heartened to see even the winners had to walk some of the course. That makes me feel better as I did walk quite a large part. HOWEVER unlike in the Francheville run a few weeks earlier, I did not have to walk down hill!

Certainly this was the most beautiful backdrop to a run that I have ever done. The organization must have been a nightmare and they managed to pull it off well (They had not run out of anything including beer at the end)

And even though the French had just had a terrible time in the World Cup football I had several people wishing England well for the next day (against Germany, which we lost 4:1)

I was 308th from 1301 finishers, 85th VH1 from 312

1:13 at the half way, 3:12 by the end.... The second half was harder!

Runners

Thought from todays (small) cycle. Does everybody want to be a runner while runners aspire to be cyclists?

- Had to cycle today, foot too sore, see previous post.

Plantar Fasciitis

I have still not written up the Cross, not sure why. Need to do that. But one thing that did happen on the Cross was  very slight injury to my heal. Probably a bit of Plantar Fasciitis. I pretty much ignored it and then went out for a hardish run on Tuesday. Ouch ... the following day (had to get up at 5 AM to give a training course in Paris) it was bad bad bad - sorry did I mention I also did the stupid thing of running in some V5's.

Anyway, have been icing and poping ibuprofen to some limited success today. But the thing that has calmed it right down was the bottle of Rose with the BBQ. Hic Hic, if this does not scan so well, that is a side effect.